BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYTICS BY: Prof.

Riyanka Dwivedi

SAP Business Intelligence Module 1

Introduction to Business Intelligence Business Intelligence Process Business Intelligence Implementation Resources Workshop

There are no silly questions

Because "They want to know the secret of business, which is to know something that nobody else knows."

Much of the data to answer the questions exists and more is available but there is a growing gap in the ability of organizations to analyze it

Discussion Questions?
What challenges you the most in your effort to make informed decisions? What roadblocks do you have to cross in order to get the information that you need to do your job? What you need to do to move data to information to knowledge to Decision?

The Value Chain

Data Lifestyle Point of Sales Demographic & Geographic Information X lives in Z S is Y years old X and S moved to Flat -16 W has money in Z Knowledge Product A is bought X% of time if product B is bought Large Amount of Y is mostly used in region Z Customers of class Y will use X% of C during period D Decision Let us promote product Y in region Z in stores Send catalogs to houses of profile P Allocate X% of funds to population B Offer additional service to client P

What is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence is the use of Information that enables organizations to best decide, measure, manage and optimize performance to achieve efficiency and financial benefit.

So what is BI? A good place to start is wikipedia. They define business Intelligence as the processing of data into information. But for many years this was used to describe the purpose of information systems such as transaction processing systems. The definition goes further to say that the information is then transformed into knowledge.
(Oxford English Dictionary) defines knowledge as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

So maybe BI refers to the use of information to a business problem.

The BI definition then refers to competitive advantage. The Gartner definition further reinforces this notion of the application of information for competitive advantage.

But how can information provide a competitive advantage? (question for class)

BI Can Be A Differentiator

(Davenport, Harvard Business Review)

This slide gives examples from the Harvard Business Review of how companies can apply information to gain a competitive advantage.Marriott International. Over the past 20 years, the corporation has honed to a science its system for establishing the optimal price for guest rooms (the key analytics process in hotels, known as revenue management). Today, its ambitions are far grander. Through its Total Hotel Optimization program, Marriott has expanded its quantitative expertise to areas such as conference facilities and catering, and made related tools available over the Internet to property revenue managers and hotel owners. It has developed systems to optimize offerings to frequent customers and assess the likelihood of those customers defecting to competitors. It has given local revenue managers the power to override the systems recommendations when certain local factors cant be predicted (like the large number of Hurricane Katrina evacuees arriving in Houston). The company has even created a revenue opportunity model, which computes actual revenues as a percentage of the optimal rates that could have been charged. That figure has grown from 83% to 91% as Marriotts revenuemanagement analytics has taken root throughout the enterprise.

BI making the Difference at Continental Airlines

Mid 90s Last profitable year was 1984 Ranked 10th on key metrics 10 different CEOs 1995 New CEO New Go Forward plan
Fly To Win, Fund The Future, Make Reliability A Reality and Working Together

Objective
A single view of each customer and the business via consistent, complete and accurate data

In 1994, Continental ranked 10th out of 10 airlines assessed by U.S.

Department of Transportation metrics. The airline knew little about its important customers; set fares and schedules using limited conventional industry assumptions; conducted contract negotiations blindly and fought fraud only after the damage was done. Continental lacked the corporate data infrastructure that a broad range of employees (down to gate agents and in-flight crews) could use to quickly access key insights about customers and the business. Each department at Continental had its own approach to data management and reporting. The airline was unable to collect integrated data on customers, schedules, bookings, available inventories, market values and other information. Inconsistent information was common across the different areas, and no detailed information was available to explain the differences.

For example: Continental didn't know a customer's travel plan from origin to destination if it involved more than one stop. Historical data was limited to less than one year. Continental was unable to determine who its high-value customers were, or

how to predict or influence their behavior.

Continental sought to develop a comprehensive cross-enterprise BI initiative. This effort was aligned with a business strategy of optimizing

revenue, reducing non-value-added costs and improving the level of

service provided to customers. Continental wanted a single view of each customer and the business via consistent, accurate and complete data. As the BI role expanded, the airline also sought up-to-the-minute access to all information so it could react quickly to critical situations. Went from last to number one

Analysts View Point

Spending on BI and Performance Management to top $57.1B in 2008 (AMR Research) Digital Information Explosion: 1-2 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of unique information each year (Berkley University) Study of 1500 CIOs suggested BI as number one priority for most organizations (Gartner) 10-15% of the IT budget will be devoted to BI BI is a major investment area, especially in conjunction with CRM, SCM and E-Business

Top 10 Business and Technology Priorities in Gartner Survey

Top 10 Business Priorities

Ranking

Top 10 Technology Priorities

Ranking

Business process improvement

Reducing enterprise costs Improving enterprise workforce effectiveness Attracting and retaining new customers Increasing the use of information/analytics Creating new products or services (innovation)

1
2 3 4 5 6

Business intelligence
Enterprise applications (ERP, CRM and others) Servers and storage technologies (virtualization) Legacy application modernization Collaboration technologies Networking, voice and data communications

1
2 3 4 5 6

Targeting customers and markets more effectively

Managing change initiatives Expanding current customer relationships Expanding into new markets and geographies

7
8 9 10

Technical infrastructure
Security technologies Service-oriented applications and architecture Document management

7
8 9 10

SAP Business Intelligence Module 1

Introduction to Business Intelligence Business Intelligence Process Business Intelligence Implementation Resources Workshop

Business Intelligence Process

8 Take actions Identify business issue
1
2

Formulat e business question

7 Report answers

What informat ion do I need

6 Analyse Informat ion

Retrieve informat ion

Where do I find the informat ion

Business Trends

Drivers of Business Intelligence

Globalization Decentralization

Smaller margins

Faster reaction to market Increasing importance of service

SAP AG 1999

Identifying a business Issue There has been an increased emphasis on BI by companies, media and academia. This is primarily has been resultant of the degree and speed of change that are impacting on companies. The improvements in communication technology have enabled extended supply chains while at the same time bring increasing the number of competitors in markets. This has resulted in a number of business issues such as an increase focus on customer requirements and need for differentiation through products and/or services. This need to be responsive to factors that are impacting on business require companies to gather relevant information to assist with decision making. The greater the speed of change the greater the need for information. When individuals are faced with change they endeavour to collect as much relevant information as possible to enable them to make appropriate decisions. This is no different for corporations. There is now a realisation by companies that the ability to adapt provides a competitive advantage in itself.

Business Intelligence Process

1 Identify business issue

8 Take actions

2 Formulate business question

7 Report answers

3 What information do I need

6 Analyse Information 5 Retrieve information

4 Where do I find the information

Diverse Business Issues

Supply Chain Manager I need to optimise the processes Marketing Manager I need to predict the outcomes of The latest campaign

CFO I need to measure our financial performance

CEO I need to measure our Performance against our objectives

Customer Service Manager I need to discover what is happening with my customers

Each business area needs to determine how they will respond to the identified business issues. They need to determine what factors do they need to know. What questions need to be asked. The business questions will differ from business area to business area and at different levels of the organisational. Each area will have it own priorities and questions. Accordingly they will have differing informational requirements. Companies often have to prioritise the issues.

Business Intelligence Process

1 Identify business issue 8 Take actions 2 Formulate business question

7 Report answers

3 What information do I need

6 Analyse Information 5 Retrieve information

4 Where do I find the information

As mentioned previously each business question will require specific information to assist in the answer. This may be a combination of structured and unstructured information. Structured information is managed by technology that allows for querying and reporting against predetermined data types and understood relationships. This usually related to databases and spreadsheets. Unstructured information usually involves images, word process documents (policies, procedures, reports) emails, audio recordings. Both types of information are important in decision making.

Getting The Right Information

Only 36% of CIOs believe management is using the right Information to run the business
Less than one in ten corporate executives believe they have the necessary information when they need it to make critical business decisions. More than half of these senior executives are concerned that as a result of missing information, they may be making poor decisions and a quarter believe that management frequently or always gets its decisions wrong.

(Gartner Research )

(Economist Intelligence Unit)

Determining which information you need to answer the business questions is essential.
Aristotle Onassis after the second world war started with $63 became one of the world's richest shipping magnates with a vast fleet of ships. For his own use, he established Olympic Airways and later gave the airline to the government of Greece as a gift. His quote reinforces the significance of BI.

It is worrying that in the 2 research findings indicate that management believe that they do not have the right information to do their jobs properly .

Not all Information Is Of The Same Value

New business strategies, opportunities Wisdom Lifetime value of this customer and strategies to deploy to create loyalty What the customer has purchased, what other products they may purchase A contact associated to a Company and all back orders

Intelligence

Knowledge

Information
A contact/customer

Data

BI is all about providing the right inputs for effective decision making. But from the previous slide we can see that these inputs are often hard to obtain. The difficulty in obtaining the right information maybe associated with the complexity of the related decision. As the decision becomes more complex determining and obtaining the right

information becomes more difficult.

The value of the decision and the associated level information varies. At the lowest level there is data which by itself does not provide much value. An example of this is a contact or a student ID and name. Once you associate a company to that contact and can track interactions you have had with that contact and company it becomes information. Important but not necessarily useful.

When you can analyze that information and determine the products this company and
contact have purchased, and use it to better target them for a new promotion possible upsell or cross selling to them then its useful and becomes knowledge

When you can take all that information including their payment history, their

returns history and begin to look at buying habits to determine if this

customer is likely to abandon your business and put into place new strategies to increase loyalty you have used analytics to give you intelligence about your business.

And, finally when you can take this intelligence and understand how to create new innovative products that this customer would want, determine what type of acquisitions your customer base might benefit from, youve used Analytics to give you the wisdom about running your business. Most companies today have lots of data and information, some even have gotten to the knowledge level to get to the intelligence and wisdom levels you must be able to analyze information across the enterprise which requires individuals with a depth of business knowledge.

Impact of Business Intelligence

The level of impact of managerial decisions will make it difficult to identify which information is required. The more strategic decisions the more difficult it will be to determine the informational requirements. It could be argued that many of todays BI initiatives are focused around making sense of the business due to the less complex business decisions and more easily identifiable information requirements.

Business Intelligence Process

1 Identify business issue 8 Take actions 2 Formulate business question

7 Report answers

3 What information do I need

6 Analyse Information 5 Retrieve information

4 Where do I find the information

If a company can determine which information is required, which is not an easy

task, then they have to find the information. With the increasing number of information systems within an company the complexity of finding the information also increases. The information, both structured and unstructured can exist in variety of sources and maybe hard to find and understand. Understanding the relationship between these information sources and the information they contain adds to the confusion. Each information source usually defines the required data differently which makes the merging of data from different information sources very difficult. For example at one stage Intel from their different customer related information systems had 17 different definitions of a customer (ie different fields). This made it very hard for them to get a single view of a customer.Companies are now realizing the importance of standardised master data and undertaking projects to achieve this.

Diverse Sources of Information

Surveys

Back of napkins

ERP Application (standard reports)

Operations

Marketing CEO & Board

Benchmark studies

Sales

Finance

Business Intelligence applications

LOB EXECUTIVES (Strategic) MID-MANAGERS (Operational) EXECUTION LEVEL (Tactical)

Application (standard reports)

Excel/Access Discussion

Too much Information but not enough Intelligence

However even though companies realise the importance of relevant information they are faced with a number of barriers. The advent of technology has seen an exponential growth in the quantity of information. Identifying relevant information and sourcing it is a skill. A recent report by IDC estimated that there is equivalent to 45gb of storage for every person in the world.
The Economist conducted a survey in 2006 of 386 executives and found that one of the limiting factors of effective business operations is Inadequate intelligence gathering Although a number of other factors were identified; inadequate intelligence gathering would contribute to the impact of these other factors. A leading analyst company, McKinsey, found that a significant amount of a workers time(40%) was spent looking for information rather than making decisions.

Too Much Information!

In today's world there is often too much information which makes hard to find the right information. Students today have access to more information than their predecessors. However does that mean they produce better assignments because of this availability of information. Often they struggle to find the important issues because of all the clutter. Who would have thought that 8 years ago that one of the leading IT companies (Google) main business was searching for information. But Now its focus is on searching most relevant information.

Business Intelligence Process

1 Identify business issue 8 Take actions 2 Formulate business question

7 Report answers

3 What information do I need

6 Analyse Information 5 Retrieve information

4 Where do I find the information

Once the information has been found then it needs to be retrieved, consolidated, transformed into a format that is ready to be reported on. Processing information for reporting has been the main goal of information systems since their inception. As business requirements, and processing power has increased the type of Information system and the value of the reports have also evolved. This slide describes a view of this evolution. It distinguishes between 2 types of systems, OLTP and OLAP. We will discuss the main differences between these types of systems in a later slide. One concept included on this slide is drilling down. This is where a user can navigate (double clicking) in a report increasing levels of detail depending upon their needs. One of the more common BI tools is data warehousing.

Business Intelligence Evolution

Evolution Phase Data Collection (1960s) Business Question What was my total revenue for the day? Enabling Technology

Data Processing Applications

Data Access (1980s)

What were sales quantity in Australia last March?

Relational Databases (OLTP)

Data Warehousing & Decision Support (1990s)

What were sales quantity in Europe? Drill down to Germany

On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP)

Data Mining (emerging today) (Alexander 2008)

What is likely to happen to Advanced algorithms, sales in Europe in fuel prices increased computing power increase? Why

Operational versus Informational Processing

Operational (OLTP)
Detailed

Informational (OLAP)
Summarised

Can be updated
Accurate up to the second Used for clerical purposes Built based on requirements Supports small uniform transactions Data designed for optimal storage Very current data Data is application oriented Referential Integrity is useful High availability is normal

Snapshot records, no updates allowed

Timestamp on each record Used by management Built without knowing requirements Supports mixed workload Data designed for optimal access Mainly historical data Data is integrated Referential integrity is not useful High availability is nice to have
Product Dimension

Customer Dimension

Sales Dimension

Quantities
Revenues

Costs Taxes

Time Dimension

Competition Dimension

Retrieval of information

Inmon proposed a structure for the retrieval, processing and presentation of information for reporting. He referred to this as the Corporate Information Factory. This includes the notion of a data warehouse The Corporate Information Factory allows companies to extract historical data from various informational sources (often OLTP), then transform, integrate and store the information for analysis. This consolidation of information freed up the information from its source application and resulted in a single version of the truth. Another term used on this slide is granular. This refers to the level of detailed that is required for decision making ie. by year, by quarter, by month etc.

Corporate Information Factory

Business Intelligence Platform

Data Warehouse - Definitions

A data warehouse is a subject oriented, integrated, time-variant, non-volatile collection of data in support of managements decisionmaking process. (W. H. Inmon, 1994). A copy of transaction data specifically structured for query and analysis (R. Kimball, The Data Warehouse Toolkit 1996)

Data Warehousing
OLTP
Month
June June

Customer
Jones Rosemann Nygung Ramp Jovanovic

Invoice $
$2000 $4000 $1400 $5000 $340

OLTP

June June July

OLTP

Data Warehouse OLAP

The data warehouse is used to extract data from source systems. This data is either master or transactional data. Master data refers to objects which are used in a business context such as product, customer, employee etc. Once this data has been entered into the OLTP system it does not get changed much. Transactional data is the related to a business process. It records the interactions between a number of master data items. Examples of transaction receiving or paying money, hiring an employee, repairing or selling goods. Unlike master data, transactional data is continually updated. Once this data is loaded into the data warehouse it is then transformed and integrated and stored in structures ready for reporting.

Business Intelligence Process

1 Identify business issue 8 Take actions 2 Formulate business question

7 Report answers

3 What information do I need

6 Analyse Information 5 Retrieve information

4 Where do I find the information

Multi-Dimensional Reporting - Drill Down, Slice and Dice

East

Region

South

Customer group
Dept. Stores

North

Wholesale Retail

Glass- Ceramics Plastics Pottery Copper Pewter ware

Division

OLAP systems allow for multi-dimensional reporting. This is the ability to navigate through the data and view it from various perspectives. Thr structures used in data warehousing to support multi-dimensional reporting are Infocubes. Here is an infocube with 3 dimensions, Region, Customer Group and product. However an Infocube could have many more dimensions than 3. Data is stored in the infocube and then can be accessed for multidimensional reporting. One techniques used to navigate multidemensional reports is drilling down and drilling up. Drill down allows the user to move from one level of aggreagtion to a more detailed level of aggreagtion. For example Sales per Country is displayed and by using drill down capabilities the user can display Sales per City for a particular country. Drill Up refers to the navigation from a detailed level of aggregation to a less deatiled level. For example Sales per Customer to Sales per customer group.

Multi-Dimensional Reporting Drill Down, Slice and Dice

This slide shows that the infocube has a number of dimensions, product group, customer group, Division, Area, Company code etc. However for the query only the customer group, division and region division dimensions will be used. Another navigational technique used in multidimensional reporting is slicing and dicing, This is where you display subsets of the data without having to build a separate query each time. The first analysis (SLICE) displays the results for all customer groups for all regions for the ceramics division. So slice, as the name depicts, display only a section of the cube. The second analysis displays the results for all customer groups for all regions for the plastics division. While the third analysis displays all customer groups in the south region for the plastics division. This is a subset of a SLICE and sometimes referred to as DICING. It is important to remember that although the results are different the same query is being used. This demonstrates the flexibility of

Data Mining

Data Mining Examples

Market Based Analysis and UpSelling/CrossSelling Customer Grouping and Behaviour Prediction Credit Card Fraud

Credit Risk Determination

Pharmaceutical Industry: Drug Effectiveness by Patient Type

Employee Turnover Predictions Defect Analysis in Manufacturing University and Employee Recruitment

Data Mining Process

VIDEO SESSION

Business Intelligence Process

1 Identify business issue 8 Take actions 2 Formulate business question

7 Report answers

3 What information do I need

6 Analyse Information 5 Retrieve information

4 Where do I find the information

Once the information has been analysed it then it needs to be presented to the decisions makers. There are a variety of mediums that can be used to deliver the results.

Information Reporting

Source: Economist Intelligence Unit (2006). Putting Information to Work. Retrieved 09/22/2007 from http://www.eiu.com

Business Intelligence Users

High Analytical Capability

Query Developers 10% Experienced Users 20%

Determine query definitions Carry out Ad Hoc reporting Require multi dimensional query analysis options Use predefined navigation steps Use predefined datasets Carry out static reports

One Time Users 70% Low

Information Delivery Tools

A number of advanced integrated reporting mechanisms have been developed. Information cockpit provides a user friendly view to the KPIs to manage a company

The dashboard is not much different from an information cockpit but is usually limited to one functional area. It provides a high level of performance but provides drill down capabilities to elicit more details as required. Geographical presentation as the name indicates displays business related data on maps again drill down capabilities allow for a greater detail.
Broadcasting is a report distribution method. Reports can be distributed via email based on a set schedule or triggered by a particular event. Mobile intelligence means that BI reports can be sent to various mobile devices.

Here is a copy of Rohm and Haas dashboard. It forms part of the companys Enterprise Portal.. This dashboard has been personalised for a particular employee and displays the important information that is required for decision making. The use of traffic lights, graphs assists the user in quickly identify issues which need to be responded to. In the navigation are the user can change some of the variables to change the information displayed.

Dashboard Rohm and Haas

Business Intelligence Process

1 Identify business issue 8 Take actions 2 Formulate business question

7 Report answers

3 What information do I need

6 Analyse Information 5 Retrieve information

4 Where do I find the information

Taking Action is What BI is All About

Different BI approaches provide differing levels of value. We have already discussed the various approaches. Closed Loop refers to implementing the business intelligence findings. In other words change a particular business process or implement a new initiative. However closed loop is not a single iteration. The data should be collected and analysed again to determine if the business question, the identified information and analysis was correct and addressed the business issue.

Closed Loop Business Intelligence

Here is an example of the closed loop process. Capital One, a leading financial institution, conducts more than 30,000 experiments a year, with different interest rates,incentives, direct-mail packaging, and other variables. Its goal is to maximize the likelihood both that potential customers will sign up for credit cards and that they will pay back Capital One.

SAP Business Intelligence Module 1

Introduction to Business Intelligence Business Intelligence Process Business Intelligence Implementation Resources Workshop

BI tool and application selection must be based on segmentation of the BI user community. Different user segments will require different BI delivery modes, from basic static reporting to sophisticated analytic applications. Deploying a proper tool/applications mix is critical to achieving optimal benefits from BI. There is no universally applicable BI tool. The most-commonly used tools are production reporting and enterprise BI suites which consist of a rich set of functionality for reporting, ad hoc and online analytical processing (OLAP) analysis. The bottom access depicts the purpose of the information analysis. Analysing what has happened is easier that understanding what is going to happen. It could be argued that companies spend a lot of time reporting on what has happened because it easier.

Diversity of Business Intelligence Tools

Event Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)

Dashboards and Scorecards Data Mining

Interactive

Ad Hoc Query

OLAP
Reporting Scheduled Spreadsheets

Advanced Analysis and Forecasting Gartner What will Happen?

What happened?

Why did it happen?

This diagram illustrates the implementation maturity of BI solutions. The stage is the implementation of an infrastructure which enables the extraction transformation and loading of data for reporting. This tends to be in the form of a data warehouse . The next layer relies on companies identify key metrics and KPIs as the basis of produced reports. This provides a focus for reporting and assists management rather than providing a plethora of reports. The decision enablement stage employs technologies such as workflow and information broadcasting to automatically alert managers to exceptions or abnormalities. The final stage is Business Activity Monitoring, BAM is the ability to automatically monitor events associated with specific activities in an executing business process. BAM is a business solution supported by an advanced technical infrastructure that enables rapid insight into new business strategies, the reduction of

Business Intelligence Maturity

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) Builds on the Output Integration capabilities to send alerts and make decisions in real-time. Decision Enablement Automation of the decision process including alerts. Systematic rules used to make decisions based on data captured after past decisions stored in a knowledge repository. Business Performance Management Implemented to help executives and managers avoid information overload and focus on the key metrics. Some alert and notification capabilities offered. BI Infrastructure Creation of enterprise and divisional or other data warehouses. Required, in order to set the foundation for an enterprise wide decision support system.

BAM

Decision Enablement

Business Performance Management

BI Infrastructure (Data Warehouse)

(McDonald, ASUG 2004)

BI Users, Analysis and Tools (Gartner)

IT Product Manager or Business Analyst Executives Managers Occasional Information Consumers Extranet: Partners, Customers Number of Users Many Thousands

Few

Tens

Tens

10 to Tens

100 to Thousands

CRM Related Questions and Analysis

Whos going to pay for all this?

Product Profitability? Demand Forecast? Customer Segmentation? Fraud?

Actual vs. Plan Metrics? Customer Loyalty? Customer Satisfaction?

Channel Effectiveness? Customer Profitability? Customer Satisfaction?

Leads Generated? Proposals Submitted? Sales booked?

Order Status? Survey Information?

BI Tools and Function

Developer, Administration, Metadata, Security

Ad Hoc Query, OLAP reports, Data Mining, Advanced Analysis

Dashboard, Scorecards, Corporate Performance Management (CPM)

Reports and Spreadsheets, Ad Hoc Query, OLAP

Reports and Spreadsheets

Reports

This slide from Gartner attempts to provide examples of where different BI application would be used based on the level of the stakeholder and the types of questions addressed. The first column refers to the IT department building the reports

BI- Enterprise Wide Approach

Companies initially adopt an isolated approach to BI. Each area purchases different tools to address their immediate needs. This results in inconsistent definitions KPIs and overlap of tools.
The next stage is where the enterprise as a whole standardises their BI tools and KPIs as processes become more integrated. The next stage refers to standardisation to BI. This is not just tools but management, master data definitions, and reporting processes. BI is closely reflects the corporate strategy.

Ensuring BI Success
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

You apply sophisticated information systems and rigorous analysis not only to your core capability but also to a range of functions as varied as marketing and human resources. Your senior executive team not only recognizes the importance of analytics capabilities but also makes their development and maintenance a primary focus. You treat fact-based decision making not only as a best practice but also as a part of the culture thats constantly emphasized and communicated by senior executives. You hire not only people with analytical skills but a lot of people with the very best analytical skills and consider them a key to your success. You not only employ analytics in almost every function and department but also consider it so strategically important that you manage it at the enterprise level.

You not only are expert at number crunching but also invent proprietary metrics for use in key business processes. 7. You not only use copious data and inhouse analysis but also share them with customers and suppliers. 8. You not only avidly consume data but also seize every opportunity to generate information, creating a test and learn culture based on numerous small experiments. 9. You not only have committed to competing on analytics but also have been building your capabilities for several years. 10. You not only emphasize the importance of analytics internally but also make quantitative capabilities part of your companys story, to be shared in the annual report and in discussions with financial analysts.
6.

Business Intelligence Vendors Gartner

Gartners magic quadrant attempts to classify solutions. They use this tool to assist companies to understand different offerings in a variety of areas. Ability to Execute Vendors are judged on their ability and success in making their vision a market reality. Product/Service: How competitive and successful are the goods and services offered by the vendor in this market? Overall Viability: What is the likelihood of the vendor continuing to invest in products and services for its customers? Sales Execution/Pricing: Does the vendor provide cost-effective licensing and maintenance options? Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Can the vendor respond to changes in market direction as customer requirements evolve? Market Execution: Are customers aware of the vendor's offerings in the market? Customer Experience: How well does the vendor support its customers? Operations: What is the ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments?

Completeness of Vision: Vendors are rated on their understanding of how market forces can be exploited to create value for customers and opportunity for themselves. Market Understanding: Does the vendor have the ability to understand buyers' needs, and to translate those needs into products and services? Marketing Strategy: Does the vendor have a clear set of messages that communicate its value and differentiation in the market? Sales Strategy: Does the vendor have the right combination of direct and indirect resources to extend its market reach? Product Strategy: Does the vendor's approach to product development and delivery emphasize differentiation and functionality as it maps to current and future requirements? Business Model: How sound and logical is the vendor's underlying business proposition? Note that this criterion has been given no rating because all vendors in the market have a viable business model. Vertical/Industry Strategy: How well can the vendor meet the needs of various industries such as financial services or retail? Geographic Strategy: How well can the vendor meet the needs of locations outside its native country, either directly or through partners?

Since this quadrant was published there has been further consolidation in the marketplace with SAP purchasing Business Objects and IBM purchasing Cognos