Getting 'Real Time' Performance with Operational BI

Operational business intelligence is about delivering information to people when and how they need it in the context of business need. Explore the five best practices best-in-class companies are using to drive faster, better decision making and higher customer satisfaction.


I read a post on the Intelligent enterprise website about getting real time performance from your business intelligence infrastructure.

A number of companies have started to use existing data to provide daily, even minute by minute information. Traditional business intelligence solutions continue to address the strategic information needs of decision makers with analysis of historical data. A number of companies are now realising the potential of applying Business Intelligence to more immediate operational needs. A number of vendors included Business Objects and Micrsoft providing support for the day to day operational needs of a company.



David Hatch from Intelligent enterprise says key benefits to business users include the opportunity to:

• Manage business activities as they occur, as opposed to waiting for the end of a day, week, or month before gaining access to analytical data and information;



• Improve customer relations by responding to their needs more rapidly, and heading off harmful events before the customer is aware, or possibly before they happen;



• Increase business efficiency by providing actionable information to line-level knowledge workers in real-time, and automating manual processes to reduce costly, repetitive report creation tasks.
  

THE 'FLAVORS' OF OPERATIONAL BI

The term "operational BI" has been identified with several terms within various industry and market vernaculars, including "transactional BI, real-time analytics, near-real-time analytics, operational reporting, business activity monitoring" and "decision management." Some of the terms have been coined to differentiate between the timeframes within which data collection, reporting, and analysis occur. Other terms describe differences in the methods and calculations that take place as data is captured, manipulated, and delivered.

Whether your company has a business intelligence environment or thinking about youre requirements - everyone can benefit from Operational Business Intelligence!

Click here for more information about Operational Business Intelligence.

Operational BI: Getting the whole company using Business Intelligence

The major vendors are all making conversations about Operational BI or Pervasive BI.

Companies are trying to raise the competitive bar through improvement of many operational business processes, including customer experiences, inventory
and purchasing, systems monitoring, and business process optimisation. Organizations are attempting to increase customer loyalty, profitability, and cross-sell / upsell opportunities.

Many companies are now being pushed to deliver results despite budget constraints. This has resulted in a focus on cost and business process efficiency monitoring that will help find efficiencies and improve the bottom line.

While traditional business intelligence solutions continue to address the strategic information needs of decision makers with analysis of historical data, organizations
are starting to realize the potential of applying BI technology and approaches to more immediate information needs. The study will determine what companies are
doing to:
• Target and prioritize operational BI initiatives
• Improve customer relations, response, and performance
• Address non-customer facing operational process improvements
• Increase the availability of information for both customer-facing and other line-level knowledge
workers
• Monitor systems for opportunities to improve business performance and reduction of harmful events

The dmReview talk about "The Next Generation of Business Intelligence: Operational BI". They say ...

Operational reporting applications simply format and display the content of BTx data stores. Many business users, however, want to be able to analyze BTx data to identify potential problems and look for business trends. There are a wide variety of analysis tools available on the market. The capabilities provided by these products range from using Microsoft Excel for data analysis to advanced OLAP applications and database systems.

Operational Business Intelligence has also been labelled BI 3.0 or the next evolution of business intelligence. We recently implemented a BI solution for a client that included strategic aswell as operational Business Intelligence.