Introduction – Addressing Business Challenges

Introduction – Addressing Business Challenges

Microsoft® Business Intelligence SolutionsMicrosoft® Business Intelligence Solutions

Presentation Introduction Business Intelligence is an area of great interest to students and

faculty in light of the huge job growth in the data/business analysis industry and its wide applicability to a myriad of fields. Many faculty members are eager to provide this education to their students in order to set their students apart and make them more competitive in the job market arena. These materials are intended to be applicable to a wide audience.

Microsoft has created Business Intelligence lecture supplements to help fill this need. They provide an overview of the basic concepts of Business Intelligence (Modules 1 & 2) and then dive a little deeper into the business and technical sides of Business Intelligence (Modules 3 & 4). Along with these are lab exercises leveraging SQL Server 2005 technology in a preconfigured lab environment.

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What’s included?

The full version of this material consists of the following components: PowerPoint presentations Demonstration videos Instructor training videos Demonstration scripts Student lab files Virtual PC Demonstration Environment

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For the full-version presentation including four slide decks, videos and demos; as well as training materials and support guides please follow the instructions below:

Navigate to this URL (this takes you to the Curriculum Repository home page): http://www.msdnaacr.net/curriculum/repository.aspx

Sign in (you may have to register if you do not have a passport) Click on “Search Repository” option in the menu on the left In the “Search for keywords” box, enter:  MicrosoftBI Choose the first result that comes up which should be:

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If you have questions, please send a message to:

bimodule@microsoft.com

If you have questions, please send a message to:

bimodule@microsoft.com

This slide is an instructor resource and not part of the formal presentation.

Introduction – Addressing Business Challenges

Introduction – Addressing Business Challenges

Microsoft® Business Intelligence SolutionsMicrosoft® Business Intelligence Solutions

Roadmap

What is Business Intelligence? Different Needs for Different Users

Executives Business Decision Makers Information Workers Line Workers Analysts

Summary

The Problem With Data

Most companies have plenty of data, but data is not information

Data is often spread across multiple systems, stored in different formats, and may even be localized for different countries

The first challenge is to consolidate the data so that it is consistent and accessible

What is Business Intelligence?

Once data is consolidated, it must still be turned into information

People must be able to easily grasp what they see

The information should support easy exploration so users can answer their own questions

BI should support many different kinds of user needs

What is Data Mining?

Data mining is a specialized branch of BI that uses statistical algorithms to examine data

These algorithms seek to identify trends and relationships that might otherwise not be apparent

Data mining is often used to perform predictive analysis (the forecasting of future trends)

The Different Users of Business Intelligence There are many different users who can

benefit from business intelligence Executives – Those who focus on the

overall business Business Decision Makers – Usually focused

on single areas of the business (finance, HR, manufacturing, and so forth)

Information Workers – Typically managers or staff working in the back office

Line Workers – Employees who might use BI without knowing it

Analysts – Employees who will perform extensive data analysis

Business Scorecards

The Purpose of a Scorecard

A scorecard should give an executive a visual representation of the health of an organization in a single glance

The scorecard is of sufficiently high level to represent major business operations and their goals

The data in a scorecard should be as recent as possible to make them more actionable

Benefits to the Executive

In a single glance, the executive can see a wide swath of the business (finance, manufacturing, sales, marketing, and more)

Immediate value is gained without the need for the executive to perform analysis

Executives see not just actual values, but comparisons to plans or prior results

The Contents of a Scorecard

Scorecards usually contain some or all of the following elements: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) KPI actual values compared to historical

values (for trend analysis) KPI actual values compared to a forecast or

budget amount Rankings of different departments,

locations, products, and so forth

Dashboards

The Purpose of a Dashboard

A dashboard is designed to allow decision makers to see a variety of data that affects their divisions or departments

This data may be in the form of scorecards, charts, tables, and so forth

The dashboard is generally customized for each user

More targeted and detailed than a scorecard

Benefits to Decision Makers

Decision makers see a variety of information targeted to their department This allows decision makers to focus only

on the items over which they have control Information is more detailed than that

of a scorecard The tools in the dashboard often have

better analytic capabilities than a scorecard

The Contents of a Dashboard

A Dashboard generally contains a variety of different views of data

The data is generally KPIs and shows trends, breakdowns, and comparisons against a forecast or historical data

The dashboard often consists of charts and tables, and may include scorecard elements as well

Reports

The Purpose of Reports

Reports allow a much broader audience to benefit from the data in a BI solution

Reports may be static, requiring no training Reports may also allow a limited amount of

interactivity Reports can be presented in a variety of

formats, allowing for easier distribution

Benefits to the Organization

BI data are available to almost all people in an organization

Reports can be emailed, viewed over the Web, or distributed in other ways to a very wide audience

Some analytic capabilities can be provided to many users

Reports can consolidate data from a number of BI databases

The Contents of Reports

Reports may include high level data such as KPIs

More detailed information can be presented, especially for specific salespeople, customers, and so on

Reports may show the details of a single transaction, or a history of data over a span of time

Application Integration

The Purpose of Custom Application Integration An application used by line workers

may include business intelligence without the worker realizing what is happening A sales clerk may get a list of targeted

recommendations to make based on what the customer is buying

A loan officer may be presented with the level of risk associated with granting a loan to a particular customer

Benefits of Custom Application Integration Business Intelligence is pushed into

every level of the organization without the need for training (or even knowledge of what BI is and how

to use it) The analytic process can be simplified

and tailored on a per application basis Line workers gain benefits from the BI

capital of the organization as part of doing their daily work

The Contents of Custom Application Integration Custom applications may include

predictive output from data mining models

Custom applications can show history and trends for the current customer, supplier, and so forth

Custom applications may allow easy ways for users to explore the data for relationships

Analytic Applications

The Purpose of Analytic Applications Analytic applications free analysts from

building complex models and writing complex queries

Analysts are free to focus on the data and discover relationships and drivers behind numbers

Rich visualizations allow much easier understanding of trends and relationships

Benefits of Analytic Applications

Data is significantly easier to analyze Analysts can focus on analyzing the

data and not writing complex queries Reports created with analytic

applications can be pushed out to the organization

Graphical tools provide users throughout the organization with powerful reports and analytic capabilities

The Contents of Analytic Applications Analytic applications typically have no

limits; analysts can see everything Analytic applications can view and

analyze all of an organization’s data in a number of ways

Analytic applications are powerful, but not as easy to use as other mechanisms

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.