Business Intelligence For Dummies

Swain Scheps

John Wiley & Sons, Feb 4, 2011 - Computers - 384 pages

You're intelligent, right? So you've already figured out that Business Intelligence can be pretty valuable in making the right decisions about your business. But you’ve heard at least a dozen definitions of what it is, and heard of at least that many BI tools. Where do you start?

Business Intelligence For Dummies makes BI understandable! It takes you step by step through the technologies and the alphabet soup, so you can choose the right technology and implement a successful BI environment. You'll see how the applications and technologies work together to access, analyze, and present data that you can use to make better decisions about your products, customers, competitors, and more.

You’ll find out how to:

• Understand the principles and practical elements of BI
• Determine what your business needs
• Compare different approaches to BI
• Build a solid BI architecture and roadmap
• Design, develop, and deploy your BI plan
• Relate BI to data warehousing, ERP, CRM, and e-commerce
• Analyze emerging trends and developing BI tools to see what else may be useful

Whether you’re the business owner or the person charged with developing and implementing a BI strategy, checking out Business Intelligence For Dummies is a good business decision.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Introduction: 9
• The BI Value: 17
• Fitting BI with Other Technology Disciplines: 23
• Fitting BI with Other Technology Disciplines: 25
• Customers Always Right: 32
• Business Intelligence User Models: 49
• Adding capabilities through managed queryingreporting: 61
• OLAP Online Analytical Processing: 67
• Dashboards and Briefing Books: 89
• The BI Lifecycle: 115
• The BI Big Picture: 117
• Human Factors in BI Implementations: 131
• Your other: 134
• Building a Solid BI Architecture and Roadmap: 163
• Implementing BI: 183
• Collecting User Requirements: 205
• BI Design and Development: 223
• The Day After Maintenance and Enhancement: 243
• BI and Technology: 259
• BI Products and Vendors: 283
• PurePlay BI Vendors: 293
• The Part of Tens: 301
• Ten BI Risks and How to Overcome Them: 309
• Ten Keys to Gathering Good BI Requirements: 315
• Ten Secrets to a Healthy BI Environment: 331
• Ten Signs That Your BI Environment Is at Risk: 339
• Index: 345

About the author

Swain Scheps is Manager of Business Analysis at Brierley + Partners, Inc. and a technology veteran making his first foray into the world of book authoring. He wrote the masterpiece resting in your hands with a great deal of input and inspiration from BI guru and fellow For Dummies author Alan R. Simon.
In the late 1990’s Swain, along with most people reading this book, had his dot-com boom-to-bust experience with a company called. . .well, that’s not really important now is it. (Anyone interested in buying some slightly underwater stock options should contact the publisher immediately.) After that there were consulting stints at Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Best Crossmark developing sales support applications and reporting tools. As of this writing, Swain basks under the fluorescent lights of Brierley, a technology company whose specialty is building customer relationship and loyalty management systems for retailers. The author has had the opportunity to learn from the very best as Brierley also provides unparalleled business intelligence and analytics services for its clients.
Swain lives in Dallas, Texas with wife Nancy and a mere four dogs. He writes about more than just technology; his work has appeared in Fodor’s travel guide books, military history magazines, and even another For Dummies book.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Business Intelligence For Dummies; --For dummies
• Author: Swain Scheps
• Edition: unabridged
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2011
• ISBN: 1118051416, 9781118051412
• Length: 384 pages
• Subjects: Computers / Business & Productivity Software / Business Intelligence; Computers / Computer Science; Computers / Information Technology