Business Intelligence Software

Business Intelligence [BI] Software is commonly used to refer to the presentation application used by the business user to interact with BI data.

However, it also includes the underlying application engine that manages access to the data and how the data can be manipulated and distributed.

BI Software is also commonly referred to as Business Performance Management [BPM] Software, or Enterprise Performance Management [EPM] Software.

Using BI Software, business users can create, modify and distribute simple reports based on complex data, customised to present real time feed back on key performance indicators [KPI's] pertinent to company.

Many organizations are now recognizing that BI software is an essential tool for maintaining their competitiveness, regardless of the industry in which they reside.

Using BI applications, distributed sources of data are extracted from legacy systems, transformed using business defined data rules and aggregated in large data warehouses. From this data, reporting and analytic tools can be layered, either directly accesssing the data warehouse, or to a series of linked, data marts.

Together, these systems provide an integrated business intelligence system.

User Business Intelligence Software

The presentation tools used by business users to access and manipulate data include:

• Scorecards - provide KPI measurement across direct [hard data] and in-direct [soft measures]
• Dashboards - a one page view of information portlets, that may either be static or able to be manipulated by the user [dynamic dashboards]
• MS Office 2007 - microsoft have integrated BI capabilty directly into its Office 2007 product such that reports such as those used in dashboards can be embedded in Excel, Word and Powerpoint documents, and refreshed with a click of a button.

BI Vendor Solutions

• Business Objects
• Cognos 8 BI
• Cognos Now
• Microstrategy
• Microsoft Performance Point Server
• Microsoft Sharepoint BI Portal
• Orace BI
• SAP BI
• SAS

Packaged Solutions

SAS BI Analytics and Teradata ADW

NEXT: Business Intelligence Solution Comparative

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