Business Intelligence Overview

Business Intelligence Overview

What Is Business Intelligence? Its roots go back to the late 1960s In the 1970s, there were decision support systems (DSS) In the 1980s, there were EIS, OLAP, GIS, and more Data warehousing and dashboards/scorecards became popular in the 1990s

Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications, technologies, and processes for gathering, storing, accessing, and analyzing data to help business users make better decisions.

Things Are Getting More Complex Organizations are finding business value in capturing, storing, and analyzing new kinds of data, such as social media, machine sensing, and clickstream. Because of its three Vs -- volume, variety, and velocity – this kind of data is often called Big Data. Many companies are performing new kinds of analytics, such as sentiment analysis to better and more quickly understand and respond to what customers are saying about them and their products. The cloud, and appliances are being used as data stores Advanced analytics are growing in popularity and importance

What Is Meant by Analytics? A new term for BI Just the data analysis part of BI “Rocket science” algorithms Three kinds of analytics – (descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics, which are discussed later).

Descriptive Analytics Descriptive analytics, such as reporting/OLAP, dashboards, and data visualization, have been widely used for some time. They are the core of traditional BI. What has occurred? Descriptive analytics, such as data visualization, is important in helping users interpret the output from predictive and predictive analytics.

Predictive Analytics Algorithms for predictive analytics, such as regression analysis, machine learning, and neural networks, have also been around for some time. Prescriptive analytics are often referred to as advanced analytics. What will occur? Marketing is the target for many predictive analytics applications. Descriptive analytics, such as data visualization, is important in helping users interpret the output from predictive and predictive analytics. Prescriptive analytics are often referred to as advanced analytics egression analysis, machine learning, and neural networks

Prescriptive Analytics Prescriptive analytics are often referred to as advanced analytics. What should occur? For example, the use of mathematical programming for revenue management is common for organizations that have “perishable” goods (e.g., rental cars, hotel rooms, airline seats). Harrah’s has been using revenue management for hotel room pricing for some time.

Organizational transformation Brought about by opportunity or necessity The firm adopts a new business model enabled by analytics Analytics are a competitive requirement

For BI-based organizations, the use of BI/analytics is a requirement for successfully competing in the marketplace.

2011 Academic Research Firms that emphasize data and analytics 5-6% Productivity Return on equity Market value Also, A 2010 IBM/MIT Sloan Management Review research study found that top performing companies in their industry are much more likely to use analytics rather than intuition across the widest range of possible decisions.

Conditions that Lead to Analyticsbased Organizations The nature of the industry Seizing an opportunity Responding to a problem

Complex Systems Tackle complex problems and provide individualized solutions Products and services are organized around the needs of individual customers Dollar value of interactions with each customer is high There is considerable interaction with each customer Examples: IBM, World Bank, Halliburton

Volume Operations Serves high-volume markets through standardized products and services Each customer interaction has a low dollar value Customer interactions are generally conducted through technology rather than person-toperson Are likely to be analytics-based Examples: Amazon.com, eBay, Hertz

The nature of the industry: Online Retailers BI Applications Analysis of clickstream data Customer profitability analysis Customer segmentation analysis Product recommendations Campaign management Pricing Forecasting Dashboards Online retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock.com are great examples of high volume operations who rely on analytics to compete. As soon as you enter, their sites a cookie is placed on your PC and all clicks are recorded. Based on your clicks and any search terms, recommendation engines decide what products to display. After you purchase an item, they have additional information that is used in marketing campaigns. Customer segmentation analysis is used in deciding what promotions to send you. How profitable you are influences how the customer care center treats you. A pricing team helps set prices and decides what prices are needed to clear out merchandise. Forecasting models are used to decide how many items to order for inventory. Dashboards monitor all aspects of organizational performance

“We are a business intelligence company” Patrick Byrne, CEO, Overstock.com

Seizing an Opportunity: Harrah’s In 1993, the gaming laws changed Harrah’s decided to compete and expand using a brand and customer loyalty strategy Offered the industry’s first customer loyalty program, Total Rewards Key to this new model was analytics using an operational store and a data warehouse. It allowed Harrah’s to perform analytics in order to know who its customers are, where they gamble, what games they play, their profitability,

Seizing an Opportunity: Harrah’s The managers of the Harrah’s properties used to run their casinos as private fiefdoms and decisions were made based on “Harrahisms” – things that were just assumed to be true. With the new business model, decision making became much more centralized and was based on constant experimentation of what worked best (i.e., fact based decision making). The success of this approach is seen in Harrah’s now being the largest gaming company in the world. The “blue collar” casino bought the more upscale Caesars in 2004 and changed its corporate name to Caesars in 2010. Many of the people who were successful with Harrah’s original uses of analytics were hired by other casinos and spread the use of analytics throughout the gaming industry.

The right analytical tools

New tools and architectures may be needed

Strong analytical personnel in an appropriate organizational structure A 2011 Bloomberg BusinessWeek study found that many organizations lack the proper analytical talent. With proper training some of the existing personnel will be able to accept the challenge, at least for more structured analytics supported by appropriate software. Most of the large vendors, such as IBM and SAS, offer training on their products. For the “rocket science” work, new personnel will often have to be brought in, either through hires or professional services. This was the case at both Harrah’s and First American.

Knowledge Requirements for Advanced Analytics Business Domain Data Modeling Choosing the right data to include in models is important. Predictive analytics should not be searching for a diamond in a coal mine. You will get too many spurious findings. Rather, it is important have some thoughts as to what variables might be related. And once you have findings, domain knowledge is necessary to understand how they can be used. Consider the story of the relationship between beer and diapers in the market basket of young males in convenience stores. You still have to decide (or experiment to discover) whether it is better to put them together or spread them across the store (in the hope that other things will be bought while walking the isles).

Business Analyst Uses BI tools and applications to understand business conditions and drive business processes

Data Scientist Uses advanced algorithms and interactive exploration tools to uncover nonobvious patterns in data Data scientists have advanced training in multivariate statistics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, mathematical programming, and simulation to perform predictive and prescriptive analytics. They often hold advanced degrees, including PhDs in econometrics, statistics, mathematics, and management science. You don’t need a lot of them, but for some of the really advanced work, they come in very handy. Be prepared to pay top dollar for them, though. A number of universities are ramping up to meet the demand, such as the new Master of Science in Analytics at North Carolina State University.