Sunday, 12 February 2012

Business Intelligence is Also for Small Enterprises

By Noelle Hamilton


Businesses use business intelligence to draw out, identify, and assess data such as income sales by products or by related costs and income. The use of this is more evident in big companies especially in banking, telecommunications, and retail sector, where data or information is plenty. Various kinds of tools, such as BI, are needed to manage the many information of the company. However, BI is not only for large companies, even small companies can still make use of this computer-based technique. Though the amount of data here is not as many as of large businesses, managing it properly is extremely essential in the success of the company.

House BI SME solutions and SaaS BI on-Demand solutions are two affordable and effective applications that SMEs can use these days. As mentioned in the first paragraph, these inexpensive and operational business intelligence tools became a reality with the help of technology. Developers of BI systems made it a point to come up with applications that won't cost much nonetheless provide good results as well as suited to the small and medium businesses. The function of House BI SME is that the implementation of the database and client application is in the premises of the client. SaaS BI on-Demand meanwhile lets clients use a standard web browser in accessing BI tools while in a secured data center. In these BI applications, tools are used like dashboards, scorecards, analytics, and data mining. When it comes to large businesses, tools like dashboards, scorecards, and business analysis tools are used.

Before the implementation of business intelligence to SMEs as well as large companies, learning the five business purposes where BI can be applied is essential. The said business purposes are measurement, analytics, reporting or enterprise reporting, collaboration or collaboration platform, and knowledge management. Measurement is the creation of structure of performance measurements and benchmarking which is used to inform the business owners about the progress made toward achieving their objectives. Analytics are made with quantitative processes so that organizations can make the most effective choices and to perform business knowledge discovery.

The third business purpose where business intelligence can be applied is reporting or enterprise reporting. It is not for operational reporting rather for the strategic reporting and serves as the strategic management of a business. Included here are data visualization, executive information system, and on-line analytical processing or OLAP. Collaboration or collaboration platform is the fourth business purpose. Through data sharing and electronic data interchange, this program can make the different areas of a business work together, from inside the business to the outside area of it. The last business purpose is knowledge management. The said business purpose makes the data of the company focus on strategies and practices. It is important so that it will identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences to the business. Learning management and regulatory compliance are results of knowledge management.

Technology has reduced the competition gap between big companies and SMEs. With the improvement of new business intelligence systems suited for SMEs which are affordable, the competition became more intense. SMEs can now manage their data effectively with out using a tool or system that burned their pockets.




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