Page 371 - Using MIS

Chapter 9 Business Intelligence Systems 339
“On the other hand, if you take off with this in some crazy way and you want to
use it to build something for users or do some serious data mining, set up a data
mart, then you’ll need to come up with some money for my budget.”
“You mean this Excel thing is sort of a taste teaser.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got to like the taste.”
“Hope it’s better than that five-spice thing.”
“See you later.”
“When do I get my report?”
“Friday?”
“That soon?”
“It’s just a teaser, Nicki.”

Chapter preview

The information systems described in Chapters 7 and 8 generate enormous amounts
of data. The systems in Chapter 7 generate structured data that is used for operational
purposes, such as tracking orders, inventories, payables, and so forth. This data
has a potential windfall: It contains patterns, relationships, and clusters and can be
used to classify, forecast, and predict. Social media data, from systems discussed in
Chapter 8, is unstructured but also provides that same windfall. However, there is so
much social media data that it results in BigData collections, which need specialized
processing.
This chapter considers business intelligence (BI) systems: information systems
that can produce patterns, relationships, and other information from organizational
structured and unstructured social data as well as from external, purchased data. In
addition to this data, another rich source of knowledge is employees themselves.
Employees come to the organization with expertise, and as they gain experience in
the organization they add to that expertise. Vast amounts of collective knowledge exist
in every organization’s employees. How can that knowledge be shared?
As a future business professional, business intelligence is a critical skill. According
to Jim Goodnight, founder of SAS: “If you want to be successful in business, make
sure you have some understanding of analytics and when to use them. People who
can use analytics—such as data mining and forecasting—to turn raw data into better
business decisions have never been in greater demand. With all the talk of ‘Big Data,’
organizations across industries need people who understand how to use analytics to
make sense of it all. I encourage this year’s graduates to learn about how and when
analytics can support their decisions.” 1
This chapter begins by summarizing the ways organizations use business
intelligence. It then describes the three basic activities in the BI process and illustrates
those activities using the AllRoad Parts problem that was presented at the beginning
of Chapter 5. We then discuss the role of data warehouses and data marts and next
survey reporting, data mining, BigData, and knowledge management BI applications.
After that, you’ll learn alternatives for publishing the results of BI applications. We will
wrap up the chapter with a 2025 observation that many people find frightening.

1 Eve Tahmincioglu, “CEO Advice for Grads: Travel, Learn, Follow Your Passion,” Today Money, last modifed
June 5, 2012, http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/05/12008767-ceo-advice-for-grads-travel-learn-
follow-your-passion?lite.