An Introduction to the Business Intelligence World

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This article is an introduction: I’ll tell you a little bit about myself and my entry into the Business Intelligence realm, as well as my plans to blog about management solutions.

Image taken from Shutterstock.

My name is Hanna Kim, and I’m an Angeleno. If you live in Los Angeles, you will notice that the city is not full of natives, but it is rather a melting pot of people with interesting stories, and I absolutely admire that about this city. As a story lover, I love traveling. I enjoy learning about different cultures and history, but the most fascinating part of traveling is finding layers about myself that I never knew about. It is always a humbling experience.

I discovered my love for traveling when I studied abroad in Prague, Czech Republic for a summer business program in 2012. A year later, I received my Bachelor’s degree at Chapman University in Communication Studies with a minor in Public Relations. As a student at a prominent film school, I jumped right into the entertainment and food industries starting my freshman year in 2009. I’ve always been curious about the tech industry though, and maybe I owe it to my music technology background, but my curiosity sparked when my best friend, Kayla Kluge, began to work as an Android developer at Kuapay, a start-up based in Santa Monica in 2012. Since then, she has always pushed me to work at a tech company because she knew I would thrive in a fast-paced environment and a dynamic company culture.

About a year ago, I felt as though it was the perfect time to delve into the tech world since “Silicon Beach” brought the tech boom to West Los Angeles, and I made a move to Los Angeles from Orange County.

I came across Business Intelligence (BI) through one of my friends, Seung Yoo, who is a consultant at Solver. BI is a technology-driven process for analyzing data and presenting information that will help companies, particularly executives, business managers, and other end users improve the decision making processes at all levels of management. BI is an exciting realm to understand because it does a number of things. It gives insight into consumer behavior, it improves efficiency, it increases productivity and most importantly, it turns data into actionable information. This also includes budgeting and forecasting.

Effective budgeting and forecasting have now become easier with the help of BI solution software and its features and functionalities. It is a direct outcome of consumer demands for budget contributor ownership to accomplish more through collaboration in planning for the company. These systems can be Excel- and Web-based, and they are excellent for businesses because they provide many advantages such as multi-user access, reporting, logic, management control, and time and quality.

As data is becoming increasingly more important in businesses, a data warehouse can also be impactful in supporting BI analyses. Data warehousing is a key technology because it delivers major benefits and key data in a timely manner. For example, data warehouses can deliver a practical way to view the past without affecting the daily operations of the company. Also, a data warehouse can be used to track, manage and improve corporate performance as well as review and optimize logistics and operations. The list goes on.

The last function that I will mention is dashboards. Dashboards are the most relevant BI investment for executives. As you get more familiar with the BI realm, you will notice that visuals are extremely important. Dashboards are powerful tools of persuasion and decision-making when presenting facts because, with data visualizations, trends can be quickly observed and understood.
The top reason as to why companies are interested in BI software, regardless of whether the company is evaluating BI for the first time or replacing an existing system, is that the consumers want to better visualize the data they are collecting. Other reasons are that the software is out-of-date or non-existent, the companies need reporting across multiple systems, they need automation, they require better organization, and they need scalability.

In an article about Top BI and Corporate Performance Management Trends for 2016, we see that the BI and CPM software marketplace will become more competitive, benefiting the consumer. This is because the popularity of tools that are adaptable, sophisticated, and secure continues to grow. This competitive industry will only allow for attractive pricing and richer analytics for the consumer. I hope you understand more clearly how and why BI can expand your business and experience.

On a daily basis, business decision-makers are inquiring about demos, product pricing, software product differences, alternate solutions for budgeting and reporting, and many more, and these questions range from all levels of basic to advanced. I am excited to be able to cover these frequently asked questions, and build a bridge for you and industry influencers.

Some specific questions we get are:

  • Which Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tool is best for my industry?
  • What integrations and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPs) do you cover?
  • Is forecasting more important than budgeting?

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to explore the tech industry by learning more about the BI space and share what I learn on this blog with insight from influencers such as Solver’s CEO Nils Rasmussen, who has been in the tech industry for 27 years.

Here are some articles to learn more what I’ll be writing more in depth about:

My next blog article will focus on the basics of BI and CPM systems for beginners. From ERP systems to budgeting and forecasting solutions to frequently asked questions, I will be sharing my knowledge and research as well as influencers’ insight through this blog. If you are curious or interested in learning about a specific topic, feel free to leave a comment below or contact me on LinkedIn. I look forward to constantly learn from professionals and my colleagues and share my insight to you all.
Solver enables world-class decisions with BI360, a leading web-based CPM suite made up of budgeting, reporting, dashboards, and data warehousing, delivered through a web portal. Solver is reinventing CPM with its next generation solution. BI360 empowers business users with modern features including innovative use of Excel in the model design process. If you’re interested in learning more, our team is excited to hear about your organizational needs and goals.

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