 |
|
 |
BASICS: The Information Supply Chain > Distribution Channel (BI)
The third and final piece in the information supply chain is where BI (business intelligence) comes in to play. If Operational Systems are the source of raw data inputs, and the Data Warehouse is the content factory, BI represents the distribution channel for content.
What does this mean? It means that the DW and BI components are separate yet linked pieces in the chain. While the DW (the Factory) integrates and manufactures content, BI (the Distribution Channel) disseminates that content to user-consumers. While the DW crunches large amounts of data on big, heavy-duty servers with long-running, complicated processing, like unto an assembly line, BI ships that content out in smaller, more manageable bits to end users in attractive packaging. While the DW places more emphasis on centralized processing and achieving economies of scale, BI tends to tailor content to the needs of a specific line of analysis or a targeted business process. In short, BI picks up the content in the factory and reports it, charts and graphs it, helps users visualize it, “portalizes” it, rates and routes it, triggers alerts about it, triggers processes based upon it, and may even re-operationalize it – i.e., interpret it and suggest courses of action to an end user, or even automatically execute those actions (Example: BI system detects an unusual pattern in credit consumption on the part of a particular customer, suggestive of possible fraud or solvency issues, and automatically throws up an order block in the order management system for this particular customer while simultaneously triggering an alert for a service rep to begin investigating). This in a nutshell describes BI and how it relates to and differs from the DW.
The DW and BI are both important pieces in the information supply chain, and each one needs the other.
|
|
