Business Intelligence: New Business Ideas uncovered through BI

Welcome to speakTECH’s BI BLOG!  This is Zeeshan Subzwari and I'm a BI Strategy Analyst, working as part of the BI Practice at speakTECH.  I'm very excited about this recently created speakTECH-BI blog.  This is a team blogging site which will be regularly contributed to by speakTECH's BI practice team members, a growing practice here at speakTECH.  Our BI team members are both knowledgeable and passionate about BI and live and breathe BI pretty much every hour of our lives.. enough that even our wives and girlfriends (and maybe pets) have deep knowledge about BI.  Just ask us what BI is all about and we’ll surely open up to you.  

We, the BI practice team, aim to have weekly contributions blogged here and made available to all of you.   Our shared vision is that this blog will become one of the best BI blogs out there in the near future and a huge resource for all kinds of info on BI and what we're doing in terms of BI solutions and project here at speakTECH.   What we hope is sooner than later, we aim to have a wealth of information – technical, functional, and business-oriented related to BI.

At speakTECH, we are committed to delivering solutions through Microsoft's BI platform, but I wanted our first BI blog to be a general brief on BI, and how, today, it is all about uncovering new ideas and opportunities in the business realm.  So, here it goes…….

I watch CNBC every morning to see the direction the market is heading in and the sentiment, at least, in the media these days isn’t really positive, as you all know.  We all know that the demands on businesses today - increased global competition, weakening dollar, fears of inflation, lower barriers to entry, lower profit margins, etc. - are, collectively, creating an ever-increasing (more than ever) need to access company data and information. Much of this data and information enterprises already have, but it is not available at their disposal in order to meet these increasing business demands.

Suffice it to say that the ability to get the right information to the right people at the right time, is becoming more important than ever; however, the sheer volume of available Data makes such a proposition more challenging than ever.  We know that organizations that are the most successful at collecting, evaluating, and applying information are consistently the leaders in their respective industries and verticals. It is easier said than done; however, the ability to act faster and more effectively than the competition can be the defining advantage in today’s competitive marketplace and the means for successfully managing customer relationships in the long run. 

Business Intelligence (BI) is a new term, but not a new concept.  In fact, BI has supported businesses for many years.  First, by providing static management information, then by providing decision support, and later by empowering users to analyze.  Today, forward-thinking organizations are using it as a driver for business optimization and innovation.

BI is more than just Corporate Reporting and more than a set of tools to coax recalcitrant data out of enterprise systems. Companies are using BI software to identify hot sellers and define revenue generating opportunities, cut costs, and discover new business.  It is identifying revenue generating opportunities, cost-cutting ideas, and uncovering new business opportunities, which are helping companies react quickly to business and customer demand.

As companies look to Business Intelligence solutions in order to address challenges, Business Intelligence has become the top priority for corporate executives and a multi-billion dollar market with no showing no signs of slowing.   

So, that was a brief on BI....Expect many more blogs from us within our domain of Business Intelligence. Our blog next week will be on Web Analytics.

- Zeeshan Subzwari - Strategy Analyst - speakTECH