Should Business Intelligence
Be 'Real-Time'?
I recently
came across a couple of
articles on
adtmag.com that are
probably worth taking a look
at.
First up is
an article by Jack Vaughan
entitled
"Dash on real-time, BI and
the road ahead". Mainly
an interview with Jnan Dash,
ex-Oracle and IBM and now an
advocate of the 'real time
enterprise'. According to
the article;
"Dash
tells technologists
discerning risk-reward
here to visualize two
circles sitting side by
side. One circle
represents operational
and transactional
elements such as ERP,
CRM and mainframe data.
The other circle
represents a snapshot of
data, and this
represents the data
warehouse or analytical
sphere. As these two
circles move to
partially overlap,
suggests Dash, the
real-time enterprise
appears.
It is the frequency of
the refresh of the
analytical snapshot that
defines the amount of
?real-time? involved. A
company pursuing a
strategy like Wal-Mart?s
may have to opt for what
Dash calls ?extreme
crispness? in its
snapshot. Others may
rightly decide day-old
data will do for certain
functions."
The article
itself links to another one,
by Tony Baer, entitled
"Analyzing data in real
time", which is probably
the more useful of the two.
The article asks the
question:
"In
recent years, business
intelligence systems
have played pivotal
roles in helping
organizations to
fine-tune business goals
such as improving
customer retention,
market penetration,
profitability and
efficiency.
In most cases, these
insights are driven by
analyses of historic
data. Therefore, it is
human nature to pose the
next logical question:
If historic data can
help us make better
decisions going forward,
could real-time data
improve decision making
here and now?"
The answer,
of course, is yes and no,
but take a look at the
article for a few examples
of where real time analysis
make the differences, and
where it just adds
complexity to a project
without actually adding any
value.
and include the URL for the page.
