Content
What is Business Intelligence?
The evolution of Business Intelligence
How does Business Intelligence work?
Data collection
Data cleansing and transformation
In the next step, the various datasets are standardised into a uniform format to prepare them for analysis. Additionally, incomplete or erroneous data is corrected or removed.
Data analysis and visualisation
Following this, the data is analysed to identify patterns and trends. The insights gained are then presented in a clear and comprehensible format using dashboards, charts, and graphs.
Data-Driven decision making
The visualised insights can now be used to make strategic and operational decisions.
Here is a simple example of how the insights derived from data can help a company:
Through BI, a company can identify which products are selling particularly well, at what times the most orders are placed, or which branches are showing the best sales figures. With these insights, marketing campaigns can be optimised, and the product range and prices can be adjusted to increase the company’s revenue in the future.
Benefits of Business Intelligence
The implementation of BI in a company brings numerous advantages, including:
- Better (Data-Driven) Decision Making: Instead of relying on gut feeling or doing things the way they have always been done, informed decisions can be made based on data.
- Increased Efficiency: Automated reports save time and resources. Additionally, inefficiencies and areas for process optimisation can be identified.
- Competitive Advantage: Early identification of new trends and market developments enables quick responses to these changes, giving a competitive edge over rivals.
- Risk Mitigation: Potential risks are identified early, allowing for timely countermeasures to be taken.
- Improved Customer Satisfaction: Data analysis helps meet customer needs, such as through personalised offers.
- Cost Savings: Optimising business processes and automation can reduce unnecessary costs.
Overall, BI offers businesses the opportunity to better understand their data and use it profitably, thereby increasing business success.
Challenges of Business Intelligence
In addition to the mentioned benefits, there are also challenges associated with Business Intelligence. These include:
- Data Volume: Due to the exponentially growing amount of data, powerful systems are required to process data in near real-time, ensuring that it doesn’t become time-consuming.
- Data Quality: With a multitude of different sources and data formats, inconsistencies, missing, or erroneous data can arise. These need to be identified to avoid drawing incorrect conclusions. Additionally, the timeliness of the data must be ensured.
- Costs: Both the acquisition and implementation of BI tools, as well as the training of employees, incur costs.
- Data Protection and Security: It is essential to ensure compliance with data protection regulations, such as the GDPR, and protect sensitive data.
- Cultural Acceptance: A cultural shift at all levels of the company is necessary. Employees must be sensitised to data-driven decision-making and understand the opportunities BI offers within the organisation.
As can be seen, BI faces both technical and organisational challenges, meaning a holistic approach is required.
Business Intelligence in SAP
To effectively address the challenges mentioned, SAP offers a variety of tools in the field of Business Intelligence that support companies in making the most of their data. The following tools play a central role in this regard:
SAP BusinessObjects
SAP BusinessObjects is an established on-premise BI suite that helps companies derive meaningful insights from their data. It is a long-standing SAP Business Intelligence tool used for creating detailed reports, analyses, and dashboards.
SAP BW/4HANA
SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Datasphere
SAP Business Data Cloud
SAP Business Data Cloud is an innovative SaaS solution that helps companies consolidate all SAP data and establish a seamless connection to external data. With a highly scalable, cloud-based infrastructure, it enables businesses to process and deliver data in real-time. Using customised data products, decisions can then be made based on the specific context of the company.
Conclusion
Over the years, Business Intelligence has evolved from a niche topic to a crucial success factor for companies. With rapid technological advancements and the exponentially increasing volume of data, BI tools help extract insights from vast amounts of data across various sources and formats. Businesses can enhance not only their competitiveness and efficiency but also customer satisfaction and cost reduction by making better-informed decisions.
SAP offers powerful BI tools that support companies in implementing data-driven strategies.
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