Understanding BI for Small Businesses

Business Intelligence [BI] tools are just as valuable for small businesses as for large. Whilst most SME's cannot afford many of the core BI vendor solutions, there are many vendors who are now offereing BI tools specifically designed for small businesses.

BI applications for SME's may be either:

• In House BI SME solutions - where the database and client application are implemented at the client premise
• SaaS BI on-Demand solutions - software as a solution that is hosted in a secure data center, with the customer using a standard web browser to access the BI tools via the Internet. BI SaaS solutions are becoming an extremely popular, lower cost option. These are also known as on-Demand BI solutions.

BI Tools Used in SME's

The main BI tools used in SMEs are the same as those used in large corporates: dashboards, scorecards, and business analysis tools. These provide a total BI solution with interactive, graphical capability that is effective for ad hoc business reporting as well as standard periodic reporting.

Dashboards

Dashboards provide key transaction and operational information in easy to read page layouts, providing decision makers with regular updates on the state of the business at a quick glance. For more on Dashboards

Scorecards

Scorecards look similar to dashboards, but are integrated to a strategic methodology such as Balanced Scorecard. These ensure that the strategy set by the business is being deployed by the organization in an holistic manner and reports by key perpsectives: Finance, Customer, Process, People and Innovation. For more on Scorecards

Analytics

Business Analytics are tools for ad hoc analysis. They leverage BI solutions to provide answers to emerging business questions. For more on Analytics

Data Mining

Data mining technology and techniques provide insight into how a business really operates, and how it can be made to operate better. By discovering patterns in the data, the business can identify problems, trends as well as opportunities for cross selling. Such methods generate a wealth of insight into business operations. Microsoft has embedded cutting-edge data mining technology in SQL Server 2005, making it freely available to businesses that have BI solutions. For more on Data Mining

NEXT: Challenges and Benefits of BI for SME's

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BI for SME Index | Challenges & Benefits | Analysis | SME BI Solutions