Every company struggles with a lot of data that needs to be processed and understood – a task that is almost impossible to accomplish without additional help. This is a big modern problem related to Big Data. The answer is Business Intelligence. An enterprise that implements BI often increases its return on investment by up to several hundred percent. What business analytics solutions should you use in your company?
What is BI?
Business Intelligence (BI, business analytics) is a process of processing specific data into information and then into precise knowledge. In short: knowledge is drawing conclusions and creating data correlations, and such activities allow enterprises to operate more effectively. Thanks to BI tools, organizations make better business decisions.
What should a BI tool contain?
BI solutions can be an essential tool for making business decisions and developing strategies. The obtained data is used throughout the company – from the marketing and sales departments to HR and production. Therefore, a business analytics tool must be as employee-friendly as possible and available at all levels in a given company.
In the past, the IT department was responsible for all Business Intelligence processes (specialized knowledge was required, e.g. advanced knowledge of SQL or extensive scripting). Currently, cloud-based solutions are preferred – easy to use, flexible, and easy to scale. One BI platform, integrated with various applications, is the basis.
A good BI solution can be recognized by the fact that it connects to multiple data sources (external and internal), enabling the loading, consolidation and integration of information. You need an application that will perform extended analyzes (using machine learning functions), automate data preparation, speed up decision-making processes and reduce the risk of errors.
Thanks to modern business analysis solutions, users have easy access to predictive analyzes and forecasting – this will allow them to spot patterns and predict future results and trends. Intelligent BI tools allow you to visualize data and automatically transform data into charts, graphs, etc. Importantly, using BI tools does not require coding skills.
All the above-mentioned properties are available in the IBM tool – IBM Cognos Analytics. What is worth knowing about it?
What are the features of IBM Cognos Analytics?
The IBM Cognos Analytics tool is one of the proposals prepared by IBM. This is a Business Intelligence solution that will be used for modeling, data mining and prediction. It is worth using them together with IBM Cognos Controller and IBM Planning Analytics.
The most important functionalities of this tool are:
- Web data modeling – transferring, acquiring, combining, and modeling data (BI tool easily combines information from spreadsheets and CSV files). Works with data sources in the cloud or on-premises, including: SQL, Google BigQuery, Amazon, and Redshift databases.
- Data mining and prediction – the tool allows you to gain more detailed insight into data without resorting to advanced analyses. Responsible for predictive forecasting, decision trees, AI assistant.
- Interactive control panels and corporate reports – the tool guarantees flexibility and mobility – a single trial instance can be used by up to 5 users who are not in one room. The „drag and drop data” function allows you to create automatic visualizations of detailed data presentations.
- Mobility – the tool is also available in a mobile version, allowing access to data and alerts anytime, anywhere, directly from your phone, 24/7.
- Cognos Assistant – self-service, always available, AI-based. Helps you get important financial analysis quickly and easily: just enter your query. The visible answers concern your own company data, not random information from the Internet.
- IBM Watson – AI platform. It helps process, analyze and interpret data in real time. For this purpose, it uses developed AI technologies, e.g. image analysis, automation, process robotics, machine learning, natural language processing.
IBM Cognos Analytics – case study
You already know the theory behind IBM Cognos Analytics. What about practice? Nothing will summarize the tool’s capabilities better than a case study. Three foreign companies decided to talk about their experiences with the BI solution from IBM. See what each of them feels like.
Elkjøp Nordic AS
The Norwegian company Elkjøp Nordic AS is one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in the Nordic region, i.e. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Greece and the Faroe Islands. It is part of Dixons Carphone PLC. In the 2019-2020 financial year, the company recorded record revenues (of NOK 41.5 billion), maintaining its good streak in the following years. The management board and employees do not hide that the company owes this success to IBM Cognos Analytics.
Elkjøp Nordic AS – the impact of BI technology
Elkjøp began using BI technology and business analytics in the late 1990s. The Norwegian company had been using local versions of IBM Cognos Analytics since 1999. BI reports and dashboards were playing an increasingly important role in executives’ daily activities. However, intensive changes burdened the local system (dashboards required more computing resources than reports). The company needed a more modern solution that would allow for easy scaling of the BI platform – in order to adapt the tool to the intensive development of the company. She decided on IBM Cognos Analytics, available in the cloud (SaaS software).
Elkjøp eagerly adopted IBM Cognos Analytics 11.0. Thanks to the tool, content was improved, dashboards were introduced and self-service was supported. Users appreciated the modern UI – especially the new sales panel. The effects were stunning. In the 2019/2020 financial year, during the Black Friday sale, sales results were the best in the company’s history. The company owes a lot to IBM, which periodically added cloud capacity without any downtime. After the intensive period ended, IBM removed the additional processing power. This was invaluable help. It is worth mentioning that such flexible scaling would not be possible in on-premises BI systems. In the 2019-2020 financial year, Elkjøp increased its total sales revenue in the Nordic market by 9%. Since then, sales have remained high.
The IBM Cognos Analytics journey with Elkjøp continues. At the beginning of 2020, interactive dashboards on mobile devices were introduced. A year later, the final migration of the IBM Cognos Analytics platform to the cloud took place. The company has gained incredible flexibility.
Case study L’Oreal – who was Zdenek Hanzal and how did he cooperate with BI?
Now let us discuss the case of L’Oreal, the world’s leading cosmetics company. The company owes its efficiency to IBM tools and Zdenek Hanzal, a senior analytical architect. For 6 years, he was a member-leader of the COMPASS project team of the L’Oreal Group – the global L’Oreal F&A solution. It was built on two platforms: IBM Planning Analytics (powered by the TM1 computing engine) and IBM Cognos Analytics (a key strategic BI tool). Project teams from L’Oreal around the world used this second BI solution for financial planning and reporting.
Migration of the L’Oreal COMPASS team to the newer version of IBM Cognos Analytics 11 enabled the use of automated tests. This, in turn, allowed us to quickly verify applications (based on thousands of analytical reports), which meant time and cost savings.
Zdenek and his design team recognized that L’Oreal’s global user base would benefit more from a more integrated and personalized UX. So a COMPASS portal was created, through which users could discover the capabilities of IBM Planning Analytics and IBM Cognos Analytics.
In addition, the L’Oreal COMPASS team identified the workflow and conducted extensive tests. Helpful techniques were discovered, such as color coding different modules and adding iconography to the navigation system. During the work, the project team could count on excellent cooperation with IBM. According to Zdenek, the improved interface of IBM Cognos Analytics 11 opened the door to all functionalities of the tool. The response to COMPASS was overwhelmingly positive. Without a doubt, the solution turned out to be a great success.
The future of business intelligence
BI systems are constantly developed, adapted to current requirements and used for new tasks. The future of the entire industry looks bright. No wonder – more and more organizations emphasize that advanced reporting is the future and a great opportunity, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Business owners decide to purchase special business analytics software (such as IBM Cognos Analytics), cooperate with specialized external organizations or hire their own data analyst.
More and more complex solutions based on OLAP and data mining technology, as well as various data extraction tools, are emerging. It is very possible that further development will include the Business Intelligence network (as a new method of shaping organizational architecture).