BPM/cfo.com

http://www.cfo.com/chart.cfm/3375840/11?option=12

I found a pretty cool site, cfo.com, which includes a plethora of information on various business intelligence software like business performance management software. At this site, you can choose from a number of different software providers, currently leading the market, to get more information on their products. Some of the providers are ALG Software, Hyperion, Oracle, Peoplesoft, and many more. Once you select one of providers, their information is presented. The information listed includes the following: Headquarters, revenue, data founded, product names, platforms, modular features, key features, key markets, key differentiators, typical price, and other. I thought this site was very useful and interesting because it indicates what types of companies the different software could benefit most.It not only lists what kinds of products and services they can provide but also if there are specific markets or industries that this software is best suited for. I think it is important for upper management to consider this information when choosing a business intelligence software such as business performance management. Size, money, market, and needs of the company need to be considered in determining which provider would be best.

KPI

While doing research for my chapter 5 presentation, I found this very interesting video on SAP's KPI wiki. The video starts off with the difficulty of trying to do business when there is little communication due to different languages. Business projects tend to fail because of this lack of communication and the video expresses a hope for a compatible world where businesses can communicate in a common language. This is what the KPI wiki gives us. The video discusses how business KPI's give companies the opportunity to measure and monitor performance by comparing actual KPI values to targets. This can present any shortcomings quickly as well as potential for improvement which is vital for every company. The video also discusses the importance of the common language in business. If everyone uses identical KPIs, companies can compare their performance with market leaders. The purpose of the KPI wiki, the focus of this video, is for everyone to be able to participate and contribute. It is important for all stakeholders to be invloved in the process of defining the common KPI language. The video then provides a brief demonstration of the KPI wiki on www.sdn.sap.com. It shows how users can go to the Business Community KPI Homepage and view all kinds of information such as cash flow. They can simply go to the financial related KPIs, see what results they find for cash flows, and have the ability to change and resave it if they want. This is how the KPI wiki enables full communication and participation for all. I thought this video was a great display of the importance of KPI and BPM and presented it in an interesting way.

FYI/Data Visualization

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6rh2r_data-visualizationbusiness-intellig_tech

Data Visualization/Business intelligence- FYI Visual
Uploaded by buryou. - Discover more science and tech videos.

This is a brief video concerning FYI corporation's data visualization software. The video starts by mentioning the fact that companies are drowning in their data. Also, because the data is not being presented in a helpful format in a timely manner, the data is not available in time to make important decisions and management is still going with "gut" instincts most of the time. FYI's mission is to create software that tracks real time data against managerial expectations in an easy to read format. FYI is taking data visualization to the next level. When using this software the user sets the expectations. The data is more relevent when it is compared to expected results. FYI's data visualization delivers a new look at business KPIs and creates a visual that is easy to read for all users. It can create a display with tens of thousands of metrics on one screen and can instantly reveal trend patterns. Using this software, a CEO can easily see the performance of an entire organization in real time and everyone else can see how they have contributed to that performance. Data visualization provides users with exactly the data they want at their fingertips. Some common industries that are using data visualization include retail, finance, energy, and healthcare. I felt this was a useful video because it further discussed the benefits of data visualization and, more specifically, how FYI's data visualization can be very helpful for many businesses.

Data Mining Privacy Issues

http://www.cis.unisa.edu.au/~ciskw/WahlstromRoddickSarreEstivillCastro&DeVries2007.pdf

I found an interesting article on Data Mining titled "Legal and Technical Issues of Privacy Preservation in Data Mining." While data mining can be very beneficial to an organization, management must be aware of the social and ethical issues surrounding the topic of data mining. Public surveys on personal privacy show a raised level of concern about the use of private information. Organizations need to make sure they use certain personal data ethically and responsibly to protect people's private information. Ethical and legal dilemmas arise when mining is executed over data of personal nature which is collected and analyzed in huge volumes on a regular basis. Both consumers and businesses need to be proactive with protecting this sensitive information. Also, the sharing of corporate data may be cost-efficient and beneficial to an organization in a relationship but allowing full access to a database for mining may have detrimental results. The article provides suggested measures to prevent unauthorized mining such as limited access to data, anonymisation, and auditing.
In addition to the ethical and legal issues, there are also technical issues involved with data mining. Data mining is not 100% accurate. This is because mining applications involve vast amounts of data that come from diverse and possibly external sources. There is also a great likelihood of errors caused by mining over poor quality data. The errors and poor data increase the costs associated with identifying and correcting these inaccuracies. It is important for organizations to be aware of the legal, ethical, and technical issues associated with data mining. These organizations need to know how to implement and utilize data mining software properly in order for it to be a success.

Dashboards

http://www.enterprise-dashboard.com/sitemap/

I found this website to be a good resource for corporate dashboards. The site provides many examples of these dashboards as well as a number of posts related to this topic. For example, I clicked on one of the posts titled "1 Place NOT to Have a Dashboard". The author talks about a recent visit to one of the world's top financial firms where they happened to see some dashboards posted in the hallway. These sheets displayed a summary of the performance of various business units. While these dashboards were very useful and available to anyone interested who might walk by, the post comically went on to discuss other locations where dashboards could be found(the restrooms). There were a great deal of these posts found on this site, some more serious than others. Another one I looked at was title "4 Principles for Dashboard Guages". This post was actually a summary of an article on this subject(there was supposed to be a link to the full article but I could not find it). The post states that "The article explores the basic principles of using elements that emulate real analog devices to represent values on digital dashboards. It starts with the acknowledgement that there are both weaknesses and strengths in using such representations." The four principles discussed in the post are: is it a good metaphor, speed of perception, visualisation, and aesthetics. I just thought this was a good site to find a lot of good information on dashboards and scorecards put into less technical more understandable terms.

IBM's Business Analytics & Optimization

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spdn1AKbUrM




This is a short advertisement for IBM's new Business Analytics and Optimization service. I found this to be an interesting display of the many benefits of using business analytics. It describes how BA can be use to turn the plethora of information available to us into intelligence. Business analytics can help identify patterns faster, pull insights from the noise, and convert data into action with its ability to analyze huge volumes of data. This software can help organizations manage their people better. For example, BA can help us find a better cure or prevent traffic jams. Business Analytics and Optimization captures vast amounts of data and transforms it into intelligence that helps people predict with more confidence.

OLAP

http://oracleolap.blogspot.com/2008/03/olap-workshop-7-creating-calculated.html

http://www.oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/olap.html

I found these two sites while researching for my chapter 3 team presentation. I plan on discussing these briefly during my presentation tomorrow but thought I should still talk about them here. The first is Oracle OLAP's blog run my some employees of Oracle OLAP. It contains information about Oracle OLAP such as new features, events, and workshops. I thought this was interesting because it gives a personal view of OLAP from people who work with it every day.

The second is the OLAP section of Oracle's main website. The site states that OLAP is "a calculation engine that supports the entire spectrum of advanced analytical applications including planning, budgeting, forecasting sales, and marketing to help identify key business trends and model complex business scenarios." This site provides the benefits of using Oracle OLAP which including much faster and higher quality information for decision makers and lower IT costs and complexity. This site also provides web support for users and a number of success stories of businesses who have implemented OLAP. The Project Leader and Business Analyst, Siebe Beintema, of Audax (one of the success stories) was quoted saying "We have seen impressive results from our first use of Oracle 9iOLAP multidimensional Analytic Workspaces with the Business Objects front end. The query performance improvements delivered are great, while the calculation functionality is a real advantage. Using the open SQL access of the multidimensional engine of the Oracle OLAP Option will allow us to provide better analysis to more people more quickly that ever before, and, as the cubes can be in the same Universe as other data in our data warehouse, the ease of use and administration is also much easier than if we had to resort to standalone OLAP cubes." It was interesting to see real quotes and success stories from the use of OLAP in addition to those mentioned in the text.

Business Intelligence

http://www.businessintelligence.com/

Chapter 1 introduces the topic of business intelligence to us. I found this website that is a great resource for business intelligence information. It contains articles, media, events, books, and many other things that all focus on business intelligence. I thought this was a great website because it is very informative and can provide new artcles and new updates on the topic of business intelligence. It is extremely important for organizations to be aware of their business environment and how it is changing and advancing. This website is a great tool to keep up with the environment and also research ways for your organization to improve their business intelligence in order to maintain a competitive advantage. Any manager that is involved in or plans to be involved in business intelligence in their company should regularly visit this site known as "the resource for business intelligence."

BI Time is Now

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc2009032_101762.htm

This is an article titled "Business Intelligence Software's Time is Now" by Rachael King. The story discusses how the recession is sparking interest in BI software because it helps companies analyze the data they collect for sales opportunities and cost-cutting ideas. There is a discussion on food industries since the current economy is pushing customers to eat at home more often and spend less on going out to eat. It is becoming more urgent for companies to make smart use of important information. Business Intelligence software can bring together data from disparate parts of the company and then the companies can do analysis, run reports, and make predictions based on past performance. Using BI software is becoming a top priority for CIOs today because it can even provide external information such as the unemployment rate and gas prices in different regions. BI can help the challenges the food industry is facing by determining how many staff should work certain shifts based on sales. The story goes on to discuss the cost associated with BI and the necessary pains to ensure it works properly. However, about two-thirds of large companies in the U.S. believe they are not spending enough on business analytics and that they need to improve their analytical capabilities.