Business Intelligence Tools And Their Impact On Business Operations: Case Studies Essay.

The assignment is divided into two main tasks worth 10 marks each. Each section will assess various elements of the course content through various assessment approaches. The first will be a technical report/essay based format and the second part a practical exercise to complement the course content.

Assignment Objectives

• Gain an understanding of Gain an understanding of Business Intelligence (BI) and the importance and use of BI in the real world and large enterprises.
• Gain an understanding and learn to use a simple BI tool in the form of Microsoft Excel for data analysis using Pivot Tables.

Your task is to refer to items (e.g., press releases, case studies, white papers, etc.) published in the popular press (e.g., Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Information Week, etc. – you may want to use online databases available on the UoN library web site) and identify at least FIVE different organizations that have implemented Business Intelligence (BI) tools to support their operations within the last 7 years.

A.Briefly describe each organisation, its operations, products/services, markets, etc. (you may want to visit the organizations’ web sites to find the relevant information) and its BI implementation.

1. Compare and contrast the ways in which the BI tools enhance or constrain the operations of those organizations.

Interpret the data - what kind/type of data is it and what can it be used for? In your answer prepare a table with column names and an explanation of the type of data and the purpose of each column, in particular of the columns including measures (such as “Row_Total”).

Imagine the following scenario:

You are hired as the new assistant to the executive board. You are asked to prepare a meeting for tomorrow, in which the board will discuss the following business questions:

How have sales developed in 2017?

Who are our top 10 Customers in 2017 (based on total dollars spent)?

What are our top 10 products in 2017 (based on total units sold)? d. How are sales distributed over the regions?

You are required to submit ONE Word document containing all of your written solutions via the TurnItIn link in the Assignment One Blackboard folder. The Word document file should be named “INFO6090 XXXX c9999 Assignment One”, where you replace XXXX with your name and c9999 with your student ID.

Your assignment should have an Assignment Cover page clearly stating your name and student number.

• Ensure all material is correctly referenced. You are assumed to have read the Academic Integrity Module and so you will be aware that Plagiarism will be severely penalised. Your document should contain the web link(s) or the complete citation(s) of the source(s) from where you obtained information.

In the recent times, there has been a rapid increase in the use of Business Intelligence (BI) tools as these are rapidly becoming business necessity owing to the host of advantages that these tools offers and thereby provide crucial support and competitive advantage. The array of BI tools available on the market has also seen a proliferation in the recent times owing to their rising demand (NT, 2018). In this backdrop, the objective of this report is to present through examples of five companies how BI tools have assumed a key support provider to various business operations.  Also, a brief review of the organisations and potential constrains would also be highlighted.

Some of the companies that have used BI tools in the last seven years have been indicazted as follows (Faggella, 2018).

• Global Tech LED – The company is engaged in providing LED lighting design to customers based in both US and outside. The specialisation of the company lies in retrofit kits related to LED along with commercial spaces fixtures. The company is based out of Florida, USA.
• Under Armour – This is a US company based in Maryland which is into the business of manufacturing of casual apparels and sporting footwear. The company also has vast presence in Europe and other developed countries.
• Plexure – This is a media company based out of New Zealand and was formerly known as VMob. It provides services to clients whereby data analytics tools are used to reach individual customers with regards to marketing messages.
• Coca-Cola Amatil – It is a bottler for Coca Cola products across the Asia Pacific region and one of the largest distributor and bottler in the region with regards to non-alcoholic beverages.
• Peter Glenn – It is a US based company which has provided gear and outdoor apparel to both wholesale and individual customers for over five decades, The company has presence with stores in Alaska and other US regions.

For the above companies, the BI tool implemented and the underlying impact on operations is captured below (Faggella,2018)

• Global Tech LED – The BI tool that was implemented is Google Analytics. The Smart Lists feature available in Google Analytics automatically enabled the company to recognise the prospective customers with the highest probability of engagement. Further, based on product page targeting, the tool also allows remarketing to such users (NT, 2018). Using the conversion optimiser, the potential customer bids were adjusted for higher conversion.

As a result of the remarketing campaign driven by Google Analytics, the company was able to generate 400% more clicks that from any display. Also, the click through rate of such remarketing campaign for the company was 100% higher than the corresponding click rates for such campaigns in other companies. The website traffic witnessed a growth of 100% with company being successful in penetrating markets such as Latin America which it aimed to penetrate.

• Under Armour – The BI tool of choice for the company was Watson Cognitive Computing platform. The company designed the app using this particular BI tool. Further there was the presence of “Cognitive Coaching System” which was aimed to provide users superior experience by serving as a personal assistant. Further, it also allowed the users to share their experience with other like-minded users (Power, 2018).

The success of the app can be gauged from the fact that an average rate of 4.5 stars has been received. Further, the app has driven the sales of the Healthbox devices provided by the company by almost 51% in the first year of operation i.e. 2016 to reach $ 80 million.

• Plexure – The BI tools deployed by the company is Azure Stream Analytics. The company uses the BI tool for various clients with the most noticeable example of McDonalds. The data regarding customer behaviour patterns is stored on a cloud and based on this targeted ads for clients such as McDonalds tends to reach the appropriate customers. This BI tool was integrated with the McDonalds app and therefore can gauge information about the surrounding temperature and weather which then can be used to provide useful offers to targeted customers in the vicinity. The result was that McDonalds in Netherlands was able to register a 700% growth in relation to offer redemption.
• Coca-Cola Amatil - The BI tool used is Trax Image Recognition which deploys imaging technology for measurement unlike the manual measurement which the company relied on before. The images of shelves of the store are taken by company representatives using this BI tool and within minutes these are analysed and reports are generated for the sales representatives of the company. This tool allows the sales team to identify performance gaps in a prompt manner and introduce corrective measures with regards to stores. The result of this tool was that the company was able to enhance the market shares by 1.3% in the region after the first operational month.
• Peter Glenn – The BI tool implemented by the company is AgilOne Analytics. This tool helps the company to improve segmentation decisions since the dashboard feature provides a combined view of sales across different channels. Further, the advanced features provide information on the customers living in the vicinity of the stores and identify the value proposition for these. The tool also provides help with regards to design promotional campaigns different channels. The company was able to reap the benefits of higher sales of upto 30% based on this tool.

Conclusion

Based on the above, it can be concluded that BI tools have significant relevance for the companies which may be involved in different domains. These tools tend to lead to either cost savings or enhanced revenue. Further, these also tend to lead to higher satisfaction levels.  Hence, going forward it would be expected that the usage and implementation of these BI tools would be on the increase (Eskil & Johan, 2016).

References

Eskil, P. & Johan, H. (2016, March 19). Implementation of a Business intelligence System: a case study. Retrieved from https://lup.lub.lu.se/p Business Intelligence (BI) tools in the Market. Retrieved from https://bigdata-madesimple.com/top-business-intelligence-bi-tools-in-the-market/

Power, J.D. (2018, June 6). What are example uses of business analytics? Retrieved from https://dssresources.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&id=422

Faggella, D. (2018, June 25). Five Business Intelligence & Analytics Case Studies Across Industry. Retrieved from https://www.techemergence.com/5-business-intelligence-analytics-case-studies-across-industry/