32558 Business Intelligence

Introduction

With the ramified complexity and economic condition of organization, it is analyzed that all the companies needs to undertake advance technologies in their process to strengthen the overall outcomes of the business. Business intelligence helps in seting up direct contact with high number of clients in market. It could be defined as skills, processes, application and practice used to support the decision making in the process system of organization. It is analyzed that it is board categories of applications and technologies which is used to gather, collect, store, enlacing and providing access to collected data to assist people in making effective decisions.  In simple words, it could be defined as simple system which gathers, integrates, analyses, conclude and present business information to support effective decision making in organization. In this report, Wesfarmers Company has been selected to analysis the real world issue of the BI adoption in the process by company. This company adopted BI in the process with a view to strengthen its process system and take the effective decision making in process.

Description of company

It is Australian retail Conglomerate Company which is indulged in providing the super market retail market services. The main headquarter of company is in Perth Australia. This company has been undertaking its business on international level with an object to satisfy its clients with its advance services.

Scope of Business Intelligence

With the ramified technologies changes and increasing complexity of the business, Business Intelligence has gained momentum in economy. Business Intelligence is the most effective tool which is used to collect the data and assists in taking the imperative decision. Business Intelligence has several benefits such as set up automation in the business process, lower down the cost of business and avoids the possible losses due to the wrong decisions.  However, Business Intelligence has also strengthened the marketing plan of company which eventually assisted in increasing the market share in long run (Larson, and Chang, 2016).

Business Intelligence use in Wesfarmers

Wesfarmers Company has been accompanied with the complex set of activities and due to the ramified changes in its process; company has faced several issues in its business. The Business Intelligence was adopted in Wesfarmers with a view to strengthen the procedural works and establish the automation in the value chain activities.  The main problem Wesfarmers faced in its marketing plan while expanding its business and connecting with its clients is related its less efficient work program (Laursen, and Thorlund, 2016). However, adoption of BI may result to several issues such as increased complexity of the business and higher cost of capital for the initial years. Managers need to make the cost and benefit analysis before investing capital for adopting BI in the business process.  The Business Intelligence has been adopted with a view to increase the overall outcomes and efficiency of the process system of organization. It is analyzed that company has used the Business Intelligence in its value chain activities and also developed dashboard online payment window for its clients. This will not only increase the overall client’s satisfaction but also strengthen the overall outcomes in the process system of organization (Kimball, Ross, Mundy, and Thornthwaite, 2015). This Business Intelligence has also allowed the loyalty card program to organization which will strengthen the connectivity of the company with its clients (Dinter, et al.  2013). Nonetheless, Wesfarmers had to face several changes in its value chain activities. The automation in the value chain activities was the main change which company made in its process to strengthen the automation in the process. Company has established automation in its several process such as clearance of the goods from the warehouse and gathering data from the available sources to take effective decisions. The BI makes possible in the process to use the collected data to take effective decision making (Sangar, Hesar, Asl, and Tahmores, 2015).  The Business Intelligence works by extracting the required information from the process and use the same information to take the imperative business decision. This BI system is mostly used in the process system of managers to gathers, integrates, analyses, conclude and present business information for the support decision making in organization. The management of company uses Business Intelligence to filter the massive amount of data and use the same to take effective strategic decisions. For instance, in order to expand the business and increase the economic order quantity in the warehouse, management of Wesfarmers uses the Business Intelligence to identify the required amount of demand, flow of goods and minimum order quantity which are required to be kept in the process. This available data assists management to take effective decisions and implement the strategic decisions. However, Business Intelligence is also useful to lower down the overall cost of capital of organization (George, Kumar, and Kumar, 2015). If Wesfarmers could easily determine the economic order quantity or optimum inventory point in its process then it could save itself from keeping excess stocks in its warehouse or blocking excess funds in its inventory management (Chen, Chiang, and Storey, 2012). In addition to this, Business Intelligence also assists in developing effective strategic marketing planning. It is used to determine the future demand and existing market share and potential clients available in the market (Turban, Sharda, and Delen, 2010). There is new marketing tool used by Wesfarmers in its marketing strategy i.e. loyalty card approach. This approach is used in the loyalty card approach in which existing client’s data is collected and used to influence them to buy more shopping from the set outlet. This will not only assist in developing an effective communication strategy but also assist organization to strengthen the market share in long run. Business Intelligence is one of the advance tools which is ideally used to collect the required amount of information so that management could take the imperative decision. This will not only assist in strengthening the business functioning of organization but also set up automation in the process to cut down the unwanted cost and business losses in long run (Gill, Bunker, and Seltsikas, 2015).  Therefore, after analyzing all the facts and identified issues of the business, it could be inferred that Business Intelligence has played pivotal role in the business success of Wesfarmers in this ramified economy. However, after installation of the Business Intelligence in its business process, Wesfarmers had to undertake proper training and development program for its employees to adapt with the newly installed system process (Wixom, et al. 2014). BI is mainly used to gathers, integrates, analyses, conclude the massive amount of information to strengthen the effectiveness of the strategic decision making. It is also used to make the trend analysis to identify where company would face loss and where company would have benefit from its business.

The main benefit which Wesfarmers grasped after installation of Business Intelligence was related to increased business output, effective strategic decision making and cope up with the challenging market condition. Now in the end, it could be inferred that Business Intelligence is most effective tool in this advanced economic and assisted Wesfarmers to cope with the competitive world. It has not only assisted company to strengthen its business position in long run but also assisted in setting up effective business for the best interest of clients.

References

Chen, H., Chiang, R.H. and Storey, V.C., 2012. Business intelligence and analytics: from big data to big impact. MIS quarterly, pp.1165-1188.

Dinter, B., Douglas, D., Chiang, R.H., Mari, F., Ram, S. and Schoder, D., 2015. Big Data Panel at SIGDSS Pre-ICIS Conference 2013: A Swiss-Army Knife? The Profile of a Data Scientist. In Reshaping Society through Analytics, Collaboration, and Decision Support (pp. 7-11). Springer, Cham.

George, J., Kumar, V. and Kumar, S., 2015, July. Data warehouse design considerations for a healthcare business intelligence system. In World congress on engineering. pp.165-188

Gill, A.Q., Bunker, D. and Seltsikas, P., 2015. Moving forward: emerging themes in financial services technologies’ adoption. Communications of the Association for Information Systems.

Jie, F. and Gengatharen, D., 2018. Australian food retail supply chain analysis. Business Process Management Journal. 36(5), pp.70-77

Kimball, R., Ross, M., Mundy, J. and Thornthwaite, W., 2015. The kimball group reader: Relentlessly practical tools for data warehousing and business intelligence remastered collection. John Wiley & Sons.

Larson, D. and Chang, V., 2016. A review and future direction of agile, business intelligence, analytics and data science. International Journal of Information Management, 36(5), pp.700-710.

Laursen, G. H., and Thorlund, J. (2016). Business analytics for managers: Taking business intelligence beyond reporting. John Wiley & Sons.

Sangar, A.B., Hesar, Z.E., Asl, M.S. and Tahmores, K., 2015. Research article proposing IS success models for measuring business intelligence system (BIS) success and analytical literature review on BIS measurement. ANARE Res. Notes, 33(2), pp.269-283.

Turban, E., Sharda, R. and Delen, D., 2010. Decision Support and Business Intelligence Systems (required). Google Scholar. 36(5), pp.10-50

Wixom, B., Ariyachandra, T., Douglas, D.E., Goul, M., Gupta, B., Iyer, L.S., Kulkarni, U.R., Mooney, J.G., Phillips-Wren, G.E. and Turetken, O., 2014. The current state of business intelligence in academia: The arrival of big data. CAIS, 34, p.1.