Real-Time Business Intelligence, ADS And Competitive Intelligence

Abstract

Business intelligence, automated decision support systems and competitive intelligence are essential components of business analytics and data visualization.

It is important to note that increased market activity, market demand and high customer expectations are very essential elements that impact the way we do business. In today’s world, markets are more competitive and how fast and effective businesses make decisions will determine to a large extent their survival in the market. The Business Intelligence concept offers a variety of tools which can be deployed to enhance decision making, based on the most current data and/or information available. This helps improve customer’s perception of business and enhanced client-company relationships that further create loyal customers thereby maximizing overall company efficiency while improving revenues. The rate at which data is required to put things in place in the wake of the need for aggressive and even proactive decisions can be described as an evolution in information access. This means that the current demand for high speed data processing has created a shifted from merely providing tools for tactical and strategic decisions from historic data to a new concept “real time business intelligence”.

The new order implies furnishing the company’s real time system with daily business transactions to provide information from historical and current data alike. Real time information helps the organization react to pressures and other events that require immediate actions.

This is also described as event driven solutions due to its ability to react to events at the moment of occurrence.

Automated Decision Support Systems (ADS)

Automated Decision Support Systems, ADS (also called Enterprise Decision Management Systems, EDM) are rule based systems that help provide efficient decisions that must be made rapidly from time to time, with information that can be accessed through electronic means.

According to Efraim Turban, ADS offers the following capabilities:

• Rapidly builds rules-based applications and deploys them into almost any operating environment

• Injects predictive analytics into rule-based applications

• Provides services to legacy systems

• Combines business rules, predictive models, and optimization strategies flexibly into state-of-the-art decision-management applications

• Accelerates the uptake of learning from decision criteria into strategy design, execution, and refinement

ADS can be applied in the following areas:

• Yield (price) optimization

• Fraud detection

• Product or service configuration

• Operational control

• Routing or segmentation decisions

• Corporate and regulatory compliance

• Dynamic forecasting

...