Initial Proposal for Dissertation Topic Topic: Benefits of Business Intelligence in the Retail sector: A Case Study of three companies done in Delhi & NCR. Background: What is Business Intelligence? Business intelligence (BI) is the process of gathering enough of the right information in the right manner at the right time, and delivering the right results to the right people for decision-making purposes so that it can continue to yield real business benefits, or have a positive impact on business strategy, tactics, and operations in the enterprises. Business intelligence is a well-established and generally well-known software category that spans a wide range of functional capabilities. Business Intelligence systems are one step above knowledge management systems. Although sspecific definitions will vary from customer to customer and vendor to vendor, but most will agree that business intelligence typically refers to the challenge of providing business users with meaningful information from company data sources to help those users make better, more informed business decisions. BI applications include activities of online analytical processing (OLAP), decision support systems (DSS), data warehousing and data mining. Business Intelligence includes the following functions: • Collecting and refining information from many sources • Analyzing and presenting the information in useful ways • Enabling people to make better business decisions Importance of the Study: Retail Companies have to answer key questions every day. What impact do price changes have on buying behaviour? Is the supply chain aligned with consumer demand? Though companies have the data that could answer these questions few properly leverage all of their resources. A company needs to first extract tangible information and then to make sure it gets into the right hands. To effectively and efficiently run the business a company must convert their data into knowledge. At the core, a company’s problems in executing stem from improper use of data due to lack of visibility. A strategic Business Intelligence platform puts the right information in the right hands at the right time, and gives managers and executives the ability to test various scenarios for business spending and investments while monitoring important operational drivers of company performance. Problem Statement: Management information is the lifeblood of any business, but some businesses have more complex needs than others. Retail, in particular, presents complex issues and challenges to providers and consumers of business intelligence software. In this dissertation, I want to take a look at what it is about retail that makes it unique and identify some of the challenges faced by retailers in the successful adoption of business intelligence techniques and systems.
Levy, Michael, Barton A. Weitz, and Dhruv Grewal. Retailing Management. ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education, 2014. Print.
However, in a utopian business the business intelligence tool deployed would provide all the features and meet the needs perfectly. Today's businesses are anything but utopian. When an organization looks at deploying a business intelligence tool there can be many factors that will complicate its deployment. Often times challenges such as whether or not the application is intuitive or not will play the largest role in deployment.
Daniel, D. (2007, October 22). 10 Keys to a Successful Business Intelligence Strategy. CIO. Retrieved May 11, 2014, from http://www.cio.com/article/148000/10_Keys_to_a_Successful_Business_Intelligence_Strategy?page=2&taxonomyId=3002
Traditional business intelligence tools are being replaced by data discovery software. The data discovery software has numerous capabilities that are dominating purchase requirements for larger distribution. A challenge remaining is the ability to meet the dual demands of enterprise IT and business users.
In today’s organizational structure many of the organizations realize that business intelligence (BI) can provide solutions and important competitive advantages and thus want to evolve their BI strategies beyond spreadsheets.
Complex and strategic are words the can be used to describe Best Buy’s most important and in some cases vulnerable inventory management system. As a consumer electronics retailer, all of its systems are designed around the customer. Many of Best Buy’s systems have one goal in common, which is to improve the efficiency of the customer and retail store transaction and long term relationship so that customers continue to return for future purchases. Because Best Buy is considered an Omni-channel retailer, today’s consumer has the ability to shop when and where they want. In order to take a deeper look into Best Buy’s information technology, and the systems that keep it running day to day, we must understand that the company is in a current transition with goals of improving these systems c...
The business intelligence (BI) marketplace is teaming with new innovations and struggles for market share. With new technologies and more companies entering the business intelligence landscape pricing for BI processes and tools are decreasing. “The relational database market is around 30 years old. It should be mature by now, but every year there seem to be new innovations in the relational database space. I’m always astounded that there continue to be new entrants” (Beckerle, p. 281, 2008).
The demand for retail is driven by a number of factors including customer related aspects such as population size, population growth and existin...
For TWR, I architected and delivered scalable robust Business Intelligence platform to perform analytics on terabytes of retail data gathered from various resources incorporating convoluted security requirements.The platform was the most extensively used application by TWR executives, sales and marketing professionals
Analysts aid executives in making strategic decisions by providing data gathered from operations. Organizations with business intelligence reporting capabilities rely on this data in order for their executives to make strategic decisions. This data is compiled into a specific template, which is referred to as a dashboard. Dashboards typically report key performance indicators that are relevant to the business. Avinash Kaushik argues that current dashboards utilized by organizations report data, but do not provide the information executives need to make the best decisions for the organization (2010). Kaushik also states that dashboards can be optimized by including components, and insights that influence decision makers to take action (2010).
Companies have transformed technology from a supporting tool into a strategic weapon.”(Davenport, 2006) In business research, technology has become an essential means that many organizations use in their daily operations. According to the article, Analytics is a major technological tool used. It is described as “the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions."(Davenport, 2006) Data is compiled to enhance business practices. When samples are taken, they are used to examine research and understand how to solve problems or why situations are as they are. Furthermore, in this article, Thomas Davenport discusses analytics from a business standpoint. He refers to organizations that have been successful in their usage of data and statistical analysis. In addition, he also discusses how data and statistics can be vital in the efforts to improve the operations of businesses.
Today’s retailers faces some of the toughest issues ever experienced in the history of the industry from a fundamental change in the way consumers shop to greatly increased expectations for service and price. Retail is all about selling, selling big and selling huge. In similar, 7-Eleven practices the same principal as retailer from all over the world. It's all about ensuring that the customer first of all comes to the store and then buys. This also means that one should connect to the customer and should be able to hold him in one place and give him all that he desires from one location. This problems is essential for every store manager in order to sustain and stay competent in the market. In this context the information technology plays a vital role in how well the customers are satisfied.
Current retailing is a long way from easy. Consumer electronics and domestic appliances have recorded a 20% growth in 2011 and 65% in 2012. The advanced retailing industry records a high representative turnover, which builds the preparation, ta...
First of all, business intelligence analysis requires the capturing of information and storing in a single location for effective data analysis. Currently, data analysis is supported by transactional systems, business specific data marts, and other ad-hoc processes. Information is distributed making it difficult and time-consuming to access. Business teams have adapted to this environment by creating user maintained databases and manual “work-arounds” to support new types of reporting and analysis. This has resulted in inconsistent data, redundant data storage, significant resource use for maintenance, and inefficient response to changing business needs.
Business intelligence, or BI, is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting. Data mining is the process of sorting through large amounts of data and picking out relevant information. It is usually used by business intelligence organizations, and financial analysts, but is increasingly being used in the sciences to extract information from the enormous data sets generated by modern experimental and observational methods.