Chapter 7: Business Intelligence Tools and Vendors

Outline BI tools BI vendors Relationship with capabilities and solutions Customization and standardization BI vendors Types of vendors

Outline BI vendors Type basis Ability to execute (ATE) Completeness of vision (COV) Type classifications Leaders Challengers Visionaries Niche Players

Business Intelligence Tools? Application software which enables BI Facilitates access, analysis of data and presentation of results Complement traditional ITs (DW, data mining, transaction processing systems) to enable 4 BI capabilities

Business Intelligence Tools Differ from BI Capabilities Organizational memory Information integration Insight creation Presentation

Business Intelligence Tools Differ from BI Solutions Utilize BI tools acquired by an organization Draw upon existing data from traditional ITs, and other information to support the BI process by delivering information and knowledge to facilitate decision-making The four BI capabilities come together in BI solutions

Figure 7.1: BI Tools in Relation to BI Capabilities, Solution, Product, and Process BI Product Data and Information (External & Internal; Structured & Unstructured) Information (that leads to knowledge and/or enables decision making) BI Process BI Solution BI Capabilities Organizational Memory Information Integration Insight Creation Presentation BI Tools Other Technologies (e.g., Data Warehouse, Data Mining) © Sabhewal & Becerra-Fernandez

Figure 7.2: A Variety of BI Tool and Technologies Text Mining tools Knowledge Repositories Web Mining tools Data Warehousing Visualization tools Enterprise Resource Planning systems Business Analytics tools Environmental Scanning Scorecarding tools Real-time Decision Support tools Digital Dashboards OLAP tools BPM tools RFID Document Management tools Digital Content Management tools Data Mining © Sabhewal & Becerra-Fernandez

BI Tools Classified into Categories Reporting, data mining, OLAP (Baars and Kemper) Increasing: cost, functionality, BI complexity & Decreasing: # of users (Keydata) Supports: data, information, knowledge, decisions (Olsak and Ziemba) BI tools and technologies map into four BI capabilities Drawn from other arenas to support BI capabilities Emerged with development of BI

Figure 7.3: Classifying BI Tools and Technologies Based on Supported Capability Organizational Memory Information Integration Insight Creation Presentation BI Capabilities Data Warehousing ERP Knowledge Repositories Digital Content Management tools Document Management tools Business Analytics tools Data Mining Real-time Decision Support Text Mining tools Web Mining tools Environmental Scanning RFID OLAP tools Visualization tools Digital Dashboards Scorecarding tools BPM tools BI Tools and Technologies Note: The highlighted tools have emerged along with development of BI, whereas the others have been adapted from other technologies to support BI. © Sabhewal & Becerra-Fernandez

Customization vs Standardization of BI Tools Could lead to wasting time on tools rather than business tasks Could lead to creating queries that are not useful to all Standardization Could be overly restrictive Could inhibit some of the major benefits from BI

Customization vs Standardization of BI Tools: Recommendations Tools supporting organizational memory capability should be standardized Tools supporting information integration should be customized only with respect to roles Tools supporting insight creation capabilities should be customized with respect to roles and tasks Tools supporting presentation capability should be customized with respect to roles, tasks, and individuals

Figure 7.4: Customization and Standardization of BI Tools and Technologies Standardization becomes more important Customization for users/situations becomes more important Customization for roles, tasks, and individuals Customization for roles Customization for roles and tasks No customization Organizational Memory Information Integration Insight Creation Presentation BI Capabilities Data Warehousing ERP Knowledge Repositories Digital Content Management tools Document Management tools Business Analytics tools Data Mining Real-time Decision Support Text Mining tools Web Mining tools Environmental Scanning RFID OLAP tools Visualization tools Digital Dashboards Scorecarding tools BPM tools BI Tools and Technologies Note: The highlighted tools have emerged along with development of BI, whereas the others have been adapted from other technologies to support BI. © Sabhewal & Becerra-Fernandez

Four BI Mega-Vendors Oracle (including Hyperion) SAP (including Business Objects) IBM (including Cognos and SPSS) Microsoft

Six Major Independent BI Vendors SAS Micro Strategy Information Builders TIBCO (including Spotfire) Qliktech Actuate

Other Notable BI Vendors Teradata HP arcplan Board International Panorama Software

Classification of BI Vendors … #1 Basis of classification Ability to execute (ATE) Completeness of vision (COV) Four types Leaders (strong in ATE, strong in COV) Challengers (strong in ATE, limited in COV) Visionaries (limited in ATE, strong in COV) Niche Players (limited in ATE, limited in COV)

Classification of BI Vendors … #2 Evaluation in industry surveys BI Mega-vendors Oracle (including Hyperion) G’08: Leader; G’09: Leader; F’08: Leader SAP (including Business Objects) G’08: Leader; G’09: Leader; F’08: Leader IBM (including Cognos) Microsoft G’08: Leader; G’09: Leader; F’08: Strong performer Major Independent Vendors SAS G’08: Leader; G’09: Leader; F’08: Leader Micro Strategy G’08: Leader; G’09: Leader; F’08: Strong performer Information Builders TIBCO (including Spotfire) G’08: Visionary; G’09: Visionary; F’08: Strong performer Qliktech G’08: Visionary; G’09: Visionary; F’08: Contender Actuate G’08: Niche player; G’09: Niche player; F’08: Strong performer Note: “G’ and “F’” refer to Gartner and Forrester classifications, respectively. ‘08 and ‘09 refer to classifications in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Products Offered by BI Vendors Oracle (including Hyperion) Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition Plus; Oracle BI Suite Standard Edition One; Oracle BI Publisher; Oracle Business Activity Monitoring; Oracle Crystal Ball; Oracle Data Integration Suite; Oracle BI on Demand SAP (including Business Objects) SAP Business Objects Enterprise; SAP Business Objects Xcelsius Enterprise; Crystal Reports; Netweaver BW (Business Warehouse) IBM (including Cognos) IBM Cognos 8, delivering numerous BI capabilities on a single service-oriented architecture: reporting, analysis, scorecarding, dashboards, and extending BI Microsoft Microsoft SQL Server; Microsoft SharePoint Server Microsoft Office Performance Point Server; Microsoft Excel SAS SAS Enterprise BI Server; SAS Analytics; SAS Visual BI; SAS Web Report Studio Micro Strategy Intelligence Server; Intelligence server extensions; User interfaces; Development/administration tools Information Builders WebFOCUS BI platform; iWay software suite of pre-built integration components; host-based reporting (FOCUS) TIBCO (including Spotfire) TIBCO Spotfire; TIBCO Spotfire DecisionSite; TIBCO Spotfire Analytics Server; TIBCO Spotfire S+ Qliktech QlikView; QlikView Server; QlikView Publisher Actuate Actuate BIRT tools; Actuate e.Reports; e.Spreadsheet

Recap We have: Discussed BI tools, examined them in relation to BI Capabilities and solutions, and illustrated them Identified and classified major BI vendors and the tools they offer

Key Terms business intelligence tools business intelligence solutions business intelligence vendors mega-vendors independent BI vendors customization of BI tools standardization of BI tools ©  Sabherwal & Becerra-Fernandez