COMM 226
Business Technology Management
Section EC
Winter 2023
Presented to:
Raul Valverde
, Case 3: Business Intelligence, Dashboard and Decision Making
Adopted from: http://www.etechgs.com/blog/post/Business-Intelligence-Helps-in-Strategic-Decision-
Making.aspx#sthash.wBxPpVgj.bNqwVMvL.dpuf
Software such as ERP, HRM, CRM, Tally, Salesforce, Web services etc. are used to generate massive
data for business organizations. There are different kinds of databases too — right from MySQL, Oracle,
DB2, Ingres, Postgres, MongoDB and the list goes on. Data is being generated at a pace like never
before, data which includes personal financial data, sales data, business data, accounting data and so
on. Although there are different software, databases etc. we still don’t have the right kind of insights. We
have data but we don’t have information or knowledge. Decision makers often wish to have a centralized
place where one can login and get a top level view of what is happening to organization. One wants the
place that can have all the information collated from as many places as possible. For any business to
turn profitable, the managers & the work force is highly reliant on decisions — which in turn are
dependent on the kind of information available. This is where Business Intelligence comes into picture.
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies, applications and practices for the collection,
integration, analysis, and presentation of business information. The purpose of BI is to support better
decision-making in business. A proper BI system helps you with the right information, at the right time, in
the right format.
BI systems provide historical, current and predictive views of business operations, most often using data
that has been gathered into a data warehouse or a data mart and occasionally working from operational
data. Software elements that make up the BI system support reporting, interactive “slice-and-dice”,
pivot-table analyses, visualization and statistical data mining. A single BI could help all the departments
For example, there are many cases where BIs were successfully implemented.
1. Marketing dept :- Helps in analyzing campaign returns, promotional yields and fine tune spending to
get better ROI, tracking social media marketing.
2. Sales :- Finding best path and best practices, customer acquisition cost and length, process
improvement, year-on-year turnover and sales analysis.
3. Inventory :- Monitoring and adjusting inventory levels.
4. Human Resource :- Track and manage things like employee turnover, attrition rate, managing
recruitment process etc.
Correct usage of BI has shown excellent results across all sectors — be it healthcare, eCommerce,
NGO, Government organisations, media companies, etc.
– On an average, ROI is $10.66 for every $1 spent on business analytics.
– Moneyball movie guided by BI, nominated for best picture
– FEBREZE marketing campaign aided by BI, generated annual sales of over $1 billion
– Correct usage of BI can help in reducing operational expenditure by up to 50%
– Financial Times used high end BI functionality to see a growth of 20%
– US govt. uses BI to determine where they should put police personnel for the best results
Main Elements of BI
So what are the main components that make up this tool and how do we evaluate them. Though there
are many parameters on which a BI tool has to be tested before selection, we provide below an absolute
must things to consider.
– Interactivity :- The different report and dashboard should have high level of interactivity. For example,
if a person is seeing the total sales report, report should be interactive so that he/she can further drill
down to see region wise sales, product wise sales, time period wise sales etc. Basically a report and
dashboard should provide drill down and drill through capabilities.
– Data Visualization :- Its very important to have a data visualized in correct format. For example,
month-on-month sales would be best represented in the form of line graph, component wise contribution
in form of pie chart, etc. Hence, if data is not represented in correct format, it will not provide any insight.
BI tool should have really good data charting engines with it.
– Connection to databases :- As explained earlier, BI tool should be able to fetch information by
connecting to different databases and web services, so that the right information is visible to the
stakeholders irrespective of the source from where it is being fetched. This can be implemented by the
Business Technology Management
Section EC
Winter 2023
Presented to:
Raul Valverde
, Case 3: Business Intelligence, Dashboard and Decision Making
Adopted from: http://www.etechgs.com/blog/post/Business-Intelligence-Helps-in-Strategic-Decision-
Making.aspx#sthash.wBxPpVgj.bNqwVMvL.dpuf
Software such as ERP, HRM, CRM, Tally, Salesforce, Web services etc. are used to generate massive
data for business organizations. There are different kinds of databases too — right from MySQL, Oracle,
DB2, Ingres, Postgres, MongoDB and the list goes on. Data is being generated at a pace like never
before, data which includes personal financial data, sales data, business data, accounting data and so
on. Although there are different software, databases etc. we still don’t have the right kind of insights. We
have data but we don’t have information or knowledge. Decision makers often wish to have a centralized
place where one can login and get a top level view of what is happening to organization. One wants the
place that can have all the information collated from as many places as possible. For any business to
turn profitable, the managers & the work force is highly reliant on decisions — which in turn are
dependent on the kind of information available. This is where Business Intelligence comes into picture.
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies, applications and practices for the collection,
integration, analysis, and presentation of business information. The purpose of BI is to support better
decision-making in business. A proper BI system helps you with the right information, at the right time, in
the right format.
BI systems provide historical, current and predictive views of business operations, most often using data
that has been gathered into a data warehouse or a data mart and occasionally working from operational
data. Software elements that make up the BI system support reporting, interactive “slice-and-dice”,
pivot-table analyses, visualization and statistical data mining. A single BI could help all the departments
For example, there are many cases where BIs were successfully implemented.
1. Marketing dept :- Helps in analyzing campaign returns, promotional yields and fine tune spending to
get better ROI, tracking social media marketing.
2. Sales :- Finding best path and best practices, customer acquisition cost and length, process
improvement, year-on-year turnover and sales analysis.
3. Inventory :- Monitoring and adjusting inventory levels.
4. Human Resource :- Track and manage things like employee turnover, attrition rate, managing
recruitment process etc.
Correct usage of BI has shown excellent results across all sectors — be it healthcare, eCommerce,
NGO, Government organisations, media companies, etc.
– On an average, ROI is $10.66 for every $1 spent on business analytics.
– Moneyball movie guided by BI, nominated for best picture
– FEBREZE marketing campaign aided by BI, generated annual sales of over $1 billion
– Correct usage of BI can help in reducing operational expenditure by up to 50%
– Financial Times used high end BI functionality to see a growth of 20%
– US govt. uses BI to determine where they should put police personnel for the best results
Main Elements of BI
So what are the main components that make up this tool and how do we evaluate them. Though there
are many parameters on which a BI tool has to be tested before selection, we provide below an absolute
must things to consider.
– Interactivity :- The different report and dashboard should have high level of interactivity. For example,
if a person is seeing the total sales report, report should be interactive so that he/she can further drill
down to see region wise sales, product wise sales, time period wise sales etc. Basically a report and
dashboard should provide drill down and drill through capabilities.
– Data Visualization :- Its very important to have a data visualized in correct format. For example,
month-on-month sales would be best represented in the form of line graph, component wise contribution
in form of pie chart, etc. Hence, if data is not represented in correct format, it will not provide any insight.
BI tool should have really good data charting engines with it.
– Connection to databases :- As explained earlier, BI tool should be able to fetch information by
connecting to different databases and web services, so that the right information is visible to the
stakeholders irrespective of the source from where it is being fetched. This can be implemented by the
