1. Business Intelligence
Stefano Grazioli

2. Critical Thinking
Easy Meter

3. Business Intelligence
The processes, technologies, and people to turn data into information in order to drive profitable business action.
- Wayne Eckerson, TDWI
Source: B. Wixom

4. BI and Analytics
“BI refers to the general ability to organize, access and analyze information in order to learn and understand the business.” (Gartner)
Analytics is “the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions” (Davenport and Harris – Competing on Analytics)

5. Business Value from Data
Strategy
High quality data
Accurate
Timely
Valid
Usable data
Awareness
Access
Usefulness
Security
Privacy
Useful data
Meaning
Scope
Sharing
Data Use
Business Value
Based on work by B. Wixom

6. GIGO: data quality affects the quality of your decisions
Analysts cannot find what they need 50% of the times
10-25% of the records have inaccuracies or missing elements
Data frequently misinterpreted
Known data loss and theft
Most databases implement inconsistent definitions
50% of the stored data is never used
10x duplication of data
Source: T. Redman, Data Driven, 2008

7. Why is Data Bad?
No one gets up in the morning and says “I’m going to make lots of errors today”
Source: T. Redman, Data Driven, 2008

8. Find the Data Quality issues
Cust ID
Name
Addr1
Addr2
City
State
Zip
Phone
0345
Daniel Steeper
765 Spider Cove
New York NY
10012
0346
Mr. Bigg
Mr. Bigg’s Wigs, Inc.
Cville
Virginia
22901
0467
MJ Watson
753 45th St
Apt 45
10024
0488
Carl Zeithaml
34 Sprigg Lane
Charlottesville VA
22904
(434)
0499
Danny Steeper #
0722
Ben Grimm
Broad and Main
Staunton
24403
null
Sue Storm
8564 Carver Dr.
NYC
0853
2345 Benson Rd
Los Angeles CA
90210
StateID
State VA
Virginia NY
New York WY
null

9. Find the Data Quality issues
Cust ID
Name
Addr1
Addr2
City
State
Zip
Phone
0345
Daniel Steeper
765 Spider Cove
New York NY
10012
0346
Mr. Bigg
Mr. Bigg’s Wigs, Inc.
Cville
Virginia
22901
0467
MJ Watson
753 45th St
Apt 45
10024
0488
Carl Zeithaml
34 Sprigg Lane
Charlottesville VA
22904
(434)
0499
Danny Steeper #
0722
Ben Grimm
Broad and Main
Staunton
24403
null
Sue Storm
8564 Carver Dr.
NYC
0853
2345 Benson Rd
Los Angeles CA
90210
StateID
State VA
Virginia NY
New York WY
null

10. Approaches to Data Quality
Find and Fix
Prevent at the source
Do nothing (3M)

11. What Is New In Technology?
WINIT
What Is New In Technology?

12. Business Scenario: Google’s Daily Cagr
Homework
Business Scenario: Google’s Daily Cagr

13. Realistic task: You are a financial analyst at a broker firm
Many of our customers invest for short amounts of time on Google. They sell their shares within a few weeks…. I wonder: do they make any money out of it?

14. Daily Cagr for Google
file with ~800 customers who bought and sold GOOG within the last two months.
Three steps (and two homework)
Clean data: phones, dates
Compute Daily Cagr = [(final price/initial price)1/days ]-1
Report the Average Daily Cagr across all customers.

15. Cleaning Phone Numbers
From: #
To: (234)

16. UML Activity Diagram - Daily Compound Average Growth of a Security (part I)
When the user presses a button, a file selection windows pops out. The user selects a file. The file is shown starting at “A1”. The start button becomes invisible. Three more buttons appear: “Clean phone numbers”, “Format Dates”, and “Compute Daily CAGR”.
Select the next column that has dates
Select the next item
[is a date]
Highlight the cell in yellow
Format as mm/dd/yyyy
& clear highlight if any A
Next homework
[Compute]
[Format Dates]
[Clean ph.no]
Select the next phone no. Count its digits
[Exactly 10 digits]
[No More items in this column]
Highlight the cell in red
Format as (xxx)-xxx-xxxx
& clear highlight if any
[No more columns] A A
[No More Ph.No]

17. Reading a File into EXCEL
' store the address of the current active sheet, i.e., the ‘target’
Dim myActiveS As Excel.Worksheet = Application.ActiveSheet
' select a file
Dim myFile As String = Application.GetOpenFilename()
' get the data in a new temporary workbook
Application.Workbooks.OpenText(myFile, , , Excel.XlTextParsingType.xlDelimited, , , , , True)
' store the address of the temporary workbook
Dim myActiveWB As Excel.Workbook = Application.ActiveWorkbook
' copy the content from the temporary to the ‘target’ sheet
myActiveS.Range("A1:J1000").Value = Application.ActiveSheet.Range("A1:J1000").Value
‘ close the temp workbook
myActiveWB.Close()

18. Finding the last non-empty row
Dim lastRow As Integer
lastRow = Cells(Rows.Count,1).
End(Excel.XlDirection.xlUp).
Row

19. Suggestions
Video available
Give yourself plenty of time