Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing

• Starting today I will be posting a series of articles on Business Intelligence and data warehousing.
  The rapid pace of today’s business environment has made Business Intelligence (BI) systems indispensable to an organization’s success. BI systems turn a company's raw data into useable information that can help management identify important trends, analyze customer behavior, and make intelligent business decisions quickly. Over the past few years, business intelligence systems have been used to understand and address back office needs such as efficiency and productivity. Now organizations are increasingly using BI to analyze customer behavior, understand market trends, and search for new opportunities.
  
  BI relies on Data Warehousing (a data repository designed to support an organization's decision making), making cost-effective storing and managing of warehouse data critical to any BIDW solution.
  
  Without an effective data warehouse, organizations cannot extract the data required for information analysis in time to facilitate expedient decision-making. The ability to obtain information in real-time has become increasingly critical in recent years because decision-making cycle times have been drastically reduced.
  Competitive pressures require businesses to make intelligent decisions based on their incoming business data and do it quickly. Simply put, the ability to turn raw data into useful information in a timely manner can add hundreds of thousands up to millions of dollars to an organization’s bottom line.
  
  We will first understand the basic concepts in Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing and is followed by an in depth analysis of various market players and their contributions to the field of BIDW.The market players will include stalwarts like Business Objects and SAS to niche players like Actuate. In the series, I will present the market share of the vendors with two angles. First, the functionalities provided & the respective tool of that company for that particular functionality. This is a comparative analysis, Secondly; we will understand the analysis of the vendors in the market classified in 4 groups of Visionaries, Leaders, Challengers & niche players.
  
  
  I will also present my views on the various companies explaining their standing in the world market.
  The series further explains the various steps to be followed by a company for tool selection and standardization.
  Also, the steps for vendor selection and criteria for building one’s own BIDW platform or buying from a vendor will be explained in detail. Once a BI platform is in place, a company needs to maintain it for which development of Business Intelligence Competency Centres is required. Important details regarding the same will be elaborated upon in the series.
  Finally, the applications of BIDW in the market place will be focused upon concentrating specifically on the following fields:
• BIOINFORMATICS
• RETAIL
• MANUFACTURING
• BANKING
  So get going guys n gals and wait for the next post!!!!