Business Intelligence (BI) helps decision makers keep their fingers on the pulse of the organization. Vital info flows through business applications every day, and most businesses spend a good deal of effort to harness that data for the daily, weekly, and monthly updates that their key personnel need. Providing an insightful slice of this data for the board of directors or an executive making a pivotal strategic decision can be even more taxing.

Furthermore, not all of a business’s data needs are predictable. Executives leave meetings asking managers for new metrics to pursue an emerging opportunity. Marketers target new demographics for which they need new information. Production managers wonder about the returns associated with a particular product defect that has been occurring frequently. Ad hoc data needs like these can’t wait for a query to be developed; they require an application that provides answers non-technical business people when they need them.

Lastly, static reports often fall short of providing real business insight. Most reports give the business user a fixed view of the data they request. If the numbers lead the viewer to more questions that require deeper analysis, the static report cannot provide it. This is problematic for those who analyze business on a regular basis; these people need dynamic views of data that can keep up with their questions they need to answer. In addition to being flexible and interactive, the desired solution to this problem must be able to show more than plain data - it needs to present it in detail that highlights characteristics of the data in graphical detail.

Dashboards, scorecards, and business analysis tools provide a solution with interactive, graphical capability that is effective for ad hoc business Q&A (as well as effective periodic reporting).

• Dashboards provide key information in compact, streamlined web readouts, allowing decision makers to get regular updates on the state of the business at a glance.
• Scorecards extend dashboards by applying the Harvard Business School Norton & Kaplan framework to dashboard technology, providing a proven strategy for business analysis.
• Business Analytics are tools for ad hoc analysis. They leverage BI solutions to provide answers to emerging business questions.

Analytical tools such as Microsoft’s ProClarity make dashboards, scorecards, and ad hoc analysis available to business people. These software packages work as part of a BI solution to provide sophisticated & presentation-ready charts, graphs, and data visualizations in a matter of moments. These can be saved for future use and shared with other decision makers in the organization.

Technology Overview

In coordination with OLAP technology, analytical products such as Microsoft’s ProClarity provide the capability to develop custom dashboards, scorecards, and analytics. These tools are designed to be used by business people, allowing them to create analyses using objects with clear business names.

ProClarity provides a variety of standard business charts and graphs as well as its own library of more advanced data visualizations. ProClarity Analytics Server (PAS) is web-based (PAS also has a fully-functioning desktop client), and includes its own security and administration. PAS interacts directly with SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 through and intuitive GUI interface, allowing non-technical users to generate advanced graphs and data visualizations. PAS analyses can be saved for future use, published for sharing, and easily secured and administered through Windows-based security such as Active Directory, and can leverage the additional layer of data security defined in Analysis Services 2005.

ProClarity Dashboard Server lets developers and business users define dashboards. ProClarity dashboards contain a variety of content, including websites, web-based business applications, reports (including SQL Server Reporting Services reports), and ProClarity analytics. ProClarity Dashboard Server makes dashboards available over the web, and includes a web-based design studio that allows users to create their own dashboards with unique layouts and content. Like ProClarity Analytics Server, ProClarity Dashboard Server leverages Windows-based security models, allowing for more centralized user administration and tie-ins with PAS, SQL Server Reporting Services 2005, SQL Server Analysis Services 2005, and other products such as Microsoft SharePoint portal.

Northridge Systems helps clients implement business analytics with a variety of tools. Northridge specializes in ProClarity, which provides business analytics, dashboard, and scorecard capabilities, and integrates tightly with SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 and other Microsoft products.

For more detailed information about Business Analytics services offered by Northridge Systems, please send us an information request or email sales@northridge.com