B.I. Advantage (continued)

To satisfy the analysis and reporting requirements of modern managers, software programs have been developed to reduce management’s reliance upon dedicated analysts. These programs present corporate data in a business context – sales per quarter by salesperson, costs per product line by region, and so on – so decision makers gain insight into the factors driving the business. All analysis can be performed with a few mouse clicks instead of the cycle of report specification and delivery. And since the BI software uses data previously extracted from the transactional system, no burden is placed on the system for analysis and reporting – no more worries about a carelessly constructed query slowing down the entire business.

B.I. Advantage specializes in software from Cognos, the leader in Business Intelligence software. Information can be deployed across a network to computers running Cognos client software or across the Internet/Intranet to anyone with a browser such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Browser access does not require a plug-in or download; it’s pure HTML. No Cognos software whatsoever is installed on the web client computers. This makes deployment as easy as emailing someone a URL.

For more flexible analysis and reporting, B.I. Advantage also designs and deploys Data Warehouses and DataMarts (smaller, often single-subject Data Warehouses) that completely remove the reporting load from the transactional system. New features can be added to the Data Warehouse without affecting day-to-day business processes. For example, customers could be grouped to facilitate marketing analysis, even if such a grouping were not available in your transactional system. Budget and Finance factors can be added to more accurately determine profitability, even if the numbers are stored in spreadsheets or other computer systems.

At B.I. Advantage we give our clients a competitive edge by helping them leverage the data that already exist in their computer systems. Our goal is to provide cost-effective solutions in a time frame that gives you a quick return on your B.I. investment. When you succeed, we succeed.