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Donning a completely new look, the next version of BI promises to
Between The Bytes deliver more in terms of features and functionality than traditional
BI. By Neeraj Gandhi
Events
Technology Senate Data is an integral part of the engine that
Technology Sabha drives the growth of any enterprise. Based
on this, enterprises take decisions and
Specials convert plans into actions. However, if this
data is not managed properly, a company’s
HMA Bankbiz
growth tends to decelerate slowly but
UPS Batteries
surely. Enterprises today are faced with a
Services new kind of challenge, the challenge of
managing information, digital information
Subscribe/Renew that is.
Archives
Search In the normal course of business,
Contact Us enterprises refer to recent data stored in a
data warehouse to plan for the next few weeks. This involved
Network Sites
manually hunting and analyzing data, a hectic and troublesome
CIO Decisions task. It was here that BI came to the rescue. With its tools, BI
Exp.Channel Business provided historical, current, and predictive views of business
Express Hospitality operations based on data stored in the data warehouse.
Express TravelWorld
feBusiness Traveller Over the years BI has developed and matured into an effective Gartner BPM
Summit
Express Pharma solution for any growing enterprise. Today, enterprises are using 3 days, 60+
Express Healthcare BI to attain business goals. Amidst all this, the next generation of sessions, 20+
Express Textile BI known as BI 2.0 has been brewing for sometime now. analysts! February
5-7, 2008,
Group Sites Vegas, NV
Defining BI 2.0 www.Gartner.com
ExpressIndia
Indian Express
“Some organizations Is BI 2.0 an improvement upon
Financial Express have been applying traditional BI, or is it the next level,
2.0 principles for the
much like the Web 2.0, or a
last 25 years,
making use of completely different platform
Indian Express conventional altogether? Even vendors are looking
technologies.”
Business Publications for clarity on BI 2.0. They are
Division however sure of the fact that BI is
- John Kopcke
Oracle Senior VP, BI and Enterprise
evolving into a more powerful tool.
Performance Management
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BI 2.0: A sneak preview - Express Computer Page 2 of 5
John Kopcke, Oracle Senior VP, BI and Enterprise Performance
Management said, “BI 2.0 marks BI becoming more interactive
(not only consuming reports, queries and dashboards, but being
able to find and analyze the right information), more collaborative
(it offers tools to not only work with data, but work on it with
others, share analyses, comment on performance indicators, and
link indicators together to create causal effects between different
business functions), and more personalized (BI tailored to the way
how different people consume and work with information).”
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Charles Nicholls’, Founder and CEO, SeeWhy Software, definition of
BI 2.0 leans on Tim O’ Reilly’s definition of Web 2.0. “Web 2.0 is
the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the UNSUBSCRIBE HERE
move to Internet as the platform, and an attempt to understand
the rules for success on that new platform.” He defined BI 2.0 as
“the business revolution caused by the move to service oriented
architecture, which enables intelligence to be built into business
processes.”
Venkatesh Anant, Director, Business “BI 2.0 is the next
Development, Intellicus Technologies generation of BI
solutions, offering
said, “BI 2.0 is the next generation
real-time intelligence
of BI solutions, offering real-time and enabling
intelligence and enabling automated automated decision-
making.”
decision-making. It is a term that
encapsulates several important new
- Venkatesh Anand
concepts about the way that we use Directior, Business Development,
and exploit information in Intellicus Technologies
businesses. It is also intrinsically
linked with real-time and event-driven BI, but is really about the
application of these technologies to business processes.”
“The level of Sanjay Deshmukh, Country Manager
adoption varies India/ SAARC, Business Objects said,
across verticals. “BI essentially means adding value
Telecom and BFSI
have taken to BI in to the business by effectively
a big way and there utilizing data. There will be no
is approximately fundamental change in this definition
90% deployment.”
for BI 2.0, but there would be
- Sanjay Deshmukh
additional features like real time data
Country Manager India/ SAARC, analysis in traditional BI that will
Business Objects shape BI 2.0.”
Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence defined BI 2.0 as “an
extension of Web 2.0 in the enterprise scenario where it is an
important opportunity for the user. It will be a mix and match of
structured and unstructured, corporate and public data mashups in
many new ways for analysis and interactive reporting capabilities.”
Inside BI 2.0
The fact is that we live in a fast paced environment, where real
time, minute-by-minute news and information differentiates
winners from losers. BI 2.0 offers a platform to stay ahead in this
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BI 2.0: A sneak preview - Express Computer Page 3 of 5
race. Contrary to traditional BI systems that are designed for
querying data warehouse containing historical data, BI 2.0 systems
are designed for continuous analysis of real-time event streams
and complex events, and interpreting their impact.
“Traditional BI analyzes data at rest, in a database. Queries are
run to extract data, calculate metrics, which can then be displayed
on a dashboard, or in a report. This process is inherently
retrospective where you are reporting on what happened in the
past,” said Nicholls. “The main advantage is that BI 2.0 can be
built into processes, whereas traditional BI merely reports on past
processes,” he added.
That said, in the BI 2.0 architecture the data is analyzed in
memory, continuously, and in flight. This means that data isn’t
stored in a database or extracted for analysis. BI 2.0 gets data
directly from middleware, the natural place to turn to for real-time
data. It uses event-stream processing. This method processes
streams of events in memory, either in parallel with actual
business processes or as a process step itself. Therefore, it can be
said that the BI 2.0 architecture is based on middleware and SOA
and not on database and queries as in traditional BI.
BI 2.0 will also bridge the gap between the users and usage.
Traditional BI has always remained in the hands of a few experts
or senior level management within the enterprise. Contrary to this,
the BI 2.0 architecture will take the application to all users in the
enterprise. “This next generation of BI, BI 2.0 includes
visualization capabilities that let users see the relationships among
data as well as interactivity that lets them manipulate the data in
an intuitive manner of working that suits the way that business
users think,” added Mehta.
“In traditional BI there is a complete integrated package in which it
is predictable how it can and will be used. Whereas, within BI 2.0,
with that same seamless integration, users can create their own
unique combination of functionalities, combining every single piece
of technology that can access the data,” said Kopcke.
It should also be noted here that BI 2.0 would not turn the existing
BI platform on its head, and that reports will still be needed. What
BI 2.0 will do is complement the existing capabilities and extend
BI’s reach into operational processes.
India’s BI quotient
According to Gartner, the level of BI adoption varies across
verticals. BFSI and retail sectors are using analytics to drive
competitive advantage. “Indian enterprises don’t look at BI as a
means to enable MIS but embed BI in their business processes.
Enterprise agility is a high-priority goal in many enterprises, but
BI’s overall impact on business is poorly understood and still
considered as ‘nice to have’,” said Bhavish Sood, Principal Analyst,
Software Markets, Gartner Inc.
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BI 2.0: A sneak preview - Express Computer Page 4 of 5
The adoption of BI till now has been driven by the overall growth
of the economy. But it’s largely industry specific. “The level of
adoption varies across verticals. Telecom and BFSI have taken to
BI in a big way and there is approximately 90% deployment. Even
ITeS and retail have started looking at BI as a possibility,” added
Deshmukh.
According to Anant, globally the size of BI market is approximately
$4-6 billion, which is completely dedicated to reporting/analytics.
“However in India, the industry is still relatively nascent and is
poised to grow to $47.4 million by 2011, as predicted by Frost and
Sullivan,” he said.
The road ahead for BI
Integration of new ways of delivering data, for instance through
windows ‘gadgets’ and Web mash-ups
Integration of technology silos, such as query and reporting
tools, enterprise performance management applications, and
operational business applications such as ERP, CRM etc.
Integration of features like data quality solutions.
More layered approach to architecture
Convergence of EDM and BI 2.0.
BI becoming more mobile with its integration into wireless
networks supported by technologies such as Wi-Fi.
A move away from transactional database systems to
implement fully integrated enterprise intelligence platforms
BI will increase the usage of unstructured data.
Rise of independent BI to fill the void after a wave of
acquisitions.
From BI to BI 2.0
BI came and changed the way enterprises used data for decision-
making. BI 2.0 is knocking at the door. The scenario presents a
great opportunity for the enterprises. But the million-dollar
question is; when would the transition happen? Some say that the
transition has happened over the past one year and it is only
recently that the term BI 2.0 is being recognized.
“Some organizations have been applying 2.0 principles for the last
25 years, making use of conventional technologies. Some will
never reach the stage of more interaction, more collaboration and
more personalized information. However, the time is ‘right’ for the
transition,” said Kopcke.
According to Deshmukh, five revolutions will drive this transition.
“User revolution (BI will become ubiquitous, available to each and
every user in the enterprise), platform revolution (the wave of
standardization where companies will streamline their set of
vendors from a long list of vendors to a short list of strategic
partners), network revolution (addresses the issue of accuracy of
data, structuring the unstructured data and reducing duplication of
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