Many businesses inundated with data tend to tough it out with inadequate analysis tools because they are not aware of how or why business intelligence (BI) solutions can provide value. This article will cover the various ways BI and analytics in general can take your business to the next level and when the right time is to seriously consider implementing an analytics solution. There are many definitions of BI, simply put, it describes...

Business Intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) are separate entities serving distinct functions in organizations. The data warehouse, representing the enterprise information architecture, serving to achieve a “single version of the truth”, is still necessary today to support the user-facing BI system in the DW/BI solution.  Perhaps once operational systems can be completely standardized, reduced to simply transactional data...

IBM Cognos Analytics 11 is a new platform with rich capabilities which IBM has stated will be rolled out incrementally via its quarterly updates. The Cognos 11 UI has changed dramatically from Cognos 10.  In many ways, this is a change in the right direction.  However, there are some nice and usable features that we had in the Cognos 10 UI not yet available in Cognos 11. One of them is the capability of retrieving the URL of a report....

If you are in the market for a business intelligence (BI) solution these days, you have surely come across, and perhaps have even shortlisted, Microsoft Power BI.  Microsoft seems to have adapted a similar marketing strategy to that used to flood the market with Microsoft Word back in the early 80’s.  Bundling MS Word with other Microsoft software to overtake the competition was indeed successful with MS Word (who uses WordPerfect or...

Accurate and timely inventory information is key to customer satisfaction and a driver for increased productivity and profitability.  Getting a visual and real-time (or near real-time) analytics snapshot of your warehouse could prove an invaluable tool from an operations standpoint. A well implemented and integrated warehouse inventory control system enables you to capture accurate product quantities and locations and gives you...

Unless you’re a member of the underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who rule the earth, the sheer concept of business intelligence can make you feel like a mere mortal navigating your way through The Matrix. It’s ironic, actually. BI, complex as it is, will make certain aspects of your business a whole lot simpler. Fortunately, there are resources like Business Intelligence for Dummies to help guide you – or,...