Business Intelligence Article 1:

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding the diverse range of business intelligence (BI) functionality that has evolved in the market over the past 15 years. It is also intended to show that there is a fundamental shortcoming in most BI tools today because they cannot support the full range of BI functionality within a single architecture – leading to excessive costs, excessive delays and excessive user dissatisfaction. Finally, this paper describes the MicroStrategy architecture as being the only BI architecture capable of delivering all of the functionality requirements within a single architecture. This paper looks at the historical development of BI applications and BI technology, and concludes that five common Styles of BI have evolved during the past decade – each style representing a certain characteristic usage and function by end users. These 5 Styles of BI are: 1. Enterprise Reporting– Broadly deployed pixel-perfect report formats for operational reporting and scorecards/dashboards targeted at information consumers and executives. 2. Cube Analysis– OLAP slice-and-dice analysis of limited data sets, targeted at managers and others who need a safe and simple environment for basic data exploration within a limited range of data. 3. Ad Hoc Query and Analysis– Full investigative query into all data, as well as automated sliceand-dice OLAP analysis of the entire database – down to the transaction level of detail if necessary. Targeted at information explorers and power users. 4. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining– Full mathematical, financial, and statistical treatment of data for purposes of correlation analysis, trend analysis, financial analysis and projections. Targeted at the professional information analysts. 5. Alerting and Report Delivery– Proactive report delivery and alerting to very large populations based on schedules or event triggers in the database. Targeted at very large user populations of information consumers, both internal and external to the enterprise. This paper shows that most BI technologies today can deliver only a single Style of BI. It shows that companies are increasingly dissatisfied with this limitation because it perpetuates a multiplicity of BI technologies within the enterprise that increases costs of ownership, decreases user acceptance and limits the richness of each BI application. Read more of this business intelligence article
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