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.
Lowe’s is a home improvement warehouse that was founded in 1946 as a single store and since has grown to become the second largest in the world. As technology has evolved, Lowe’s has made many advances incorporating new systems and devices to stay competitive. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the information technology management systems used at Lowe’s. It will look at Porter’s Five Force Model, supply chain management; data base management system, five agent-based technologies, e-commerce and system development lifecycle. Furthermore, it will look at business continuity planning, emerging trends and security vulnerabilities relates to the organization to remain competitive.
The continuous growth of the business analytics software markets signifies an increase in the adoption of business analytics in business organizations. Business analytics has been crucial in optimizing organizations internally as well as maintaining flexibility to overcome unexpected external pressures as businesses shift from operating on intuition to utilizing the growing data volumes. Business analytics is defined as the processes that enable organizations to apply metrics based decision making to all business functions. Among the companies that have been successful with business analytics is Netflix, the American entertainment company. However, other companies, such as Trader Joe’s, although successful, still use the traditional intuition
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
“There are some major benefits for building this model. One is that understanding an information flow provides logical documentation for the business process. Another is that it exposes potential for adding value through the kinds of analytical processing” (Loshin, David.) In other words, reporting, forecasting and planning are all key components to business intelligence and the success of Morgan Drygood’s in the long
In these challenging times where technology changes on daily basis, companies are striving hard to focus on customers’ expectations and needs. This has increased expectations from the managers who are constantly trying to come up with new ideas and innovation to survive in the retail business. The health of any business is dependent on the way they are different from their competitors. In order to increase sales the company is completely dependent on uniqueness and the best way to satisfy the customers. Best Buy is committed to provide customers with a unique experience. In order to serve the customers to their best ability, Best Buy has changed its business model from Product Driven to Customer Driven.
Through Wal-Mart’s use of information systems that can instantly access and analyze each stores orders, inventory levels, and sales in real time, it achieves significant cost savings (Jurevicius, 2013). This is one of the most important factors in Wal-Mart’s success. Wal-Mart offers both branded and own label products at much lower prices than competitors do (Jurevicius, 2013). Customers are mainly attracted to Wal-Mart because of their wide range of products and services for a low
Design is much more than the process of making clothes; it's a scientific art form that involves calculations of execution. Looking at fashion theoretically it dives in deep rather than just a production clothing. Exploring designer collections and their mood boards represents their self expression, their fantasies, and what they hope for in a society. A true artists mind is able to connect between all aspects of life, as well as connecting people through their work. Does that mean we all come from the same collective conscious?
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.
“Forward-thinking retailers are leveraging the vast amounts of data they possess and building analytical muscle to enable targeted marketing, tailored assortments, and effective pricing and promotions,” writes Ian MacKenzie, a specialist at McKinsey.
According the writers of the book “Building Data Mining Applications for CRM” modern store owners have to deal with “more customers, more products, more competitors, and less time to react.” In a time when understanding customers is more critical to success it is becoming hard to do because of the above reasons (Berson, Alex, & Thearling, 2000).
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.
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.
The last decade can be marked as a period of significant changes in the business world. Being accustomed to utilize computers as a powerful tool with its office applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel. In the 1990s office workers first faced the opportunity to share information using the Internet (McNurlin, 2009). However, the situation became even more different with the transition to the third millennium. With a further development of information technologies, the majority of big enterprises had to reconstitute their business processes and to make the transition to the Internet economy. Enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply-chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM) software and the variety of other information systems became essential components of the new economy. It can be expected, that all these complex solutions were designed to bring great benefits for different sides of the corporate activity, in particular, decisions made by top-managers are expected to become nearer to the ideal, customer service is to be improved and collaboration more prolific. Nevertheless, to ensure the desired results it should be taken into account that the key concept of these reorganizations is an information or a data, dealing with which can be a serious issue, and wide utilizing of the data warehouses in contemporary organizations confirms this fact.
The nature of the business of retailing puts retailers at a assumed risk of incurring costs because products are bought with the assumption that consumers will purchase. Additionally there are external factors that may also pose risks such as natural disasters, theft, spoilage and fire. In other circumstances retailers also extends financial credit to customers in the form of credit sales which facilitates the smooth transition from retailers to the marketplace. Retailers are in constant contact with customers which gives them the opportunity to research and study buyer’s behaviour. This involves collecting information about changes in customer preferences, perception and shifts in the demand curve. Through advertising within their stores retailers are able to exhibit and introduce existing and new products to the marketplace. Ultimately retailers are in the business of selling products to customers to achieve their goals of generating
The retailer faces a more knowledgeable and demanding customer and since business exists to satisfy the needs of the consumer, the demands and expectations of the consumer often have forced the retail organization to change their formats and product offerings.