DATAVIA Consulting - Book Review - Business Intelligence

DATAVIA Consulting

"Business Intelligence for Dummies"
is written by Swain Scheps, a consultant and veteran in the world of business analysis.
Business Intelligence is an essential tool for a company to survive in the fast changing competitive environment and even faster developing technology. A business manager needs superior Business Intelligence to stay ahead of the competition and to stay successful.
This book provides a good source of knowledge for all ICT professionals who want to serve this market.

The introduction gives a clear overview of what Business Intelligence is, its history and its purpose. Also an explanation of how Business intelligence fits with other business management tools, such as data warehousing, ERP, CRM and the likes. How to determine what the needs are for BI deployment, rightsizing and best practices for implementation.

The Business Intelligence user models vary from basic Querying and Reporting to Online Analytical Processing. Executive Information Systems, such as Dashboards, Scorecards and Briefing books. And finally a taste is given of Visualization Tools and Data Mining.

Next the BI Lifecycle is described. How to analyze the business' needs and selecting the best possible solution from the many different products on the market. The author then takes a look at the people involved in the implementation and the end users and their interaction with the tool.

Subsequently the BI strategy is laid out. Looking in more detail what is currently done in your company and how this can be developed in a more productive solution. This leads to the architecture of the new BI solution and a roadmap defining how to reach our goal.

An extensive description of the project plan is then being developed. Then follows an overview of how and where to collect the user requirements. Based on the strategy and the user requirements the new system is being designed, developed and implemented. Finally the system is in operation and then has to be maintained and supported. It will never be complete as new user wishes and requirements will emerge.

The author also provides a description of the possibly involved data warehouses, data marts and stores. Various data models can be utilized. He also gives an overview of the many products, packages and systems available on the BI market.

In the final part of the book several series of "Tens" are provided. Ten keys to BI success, Ten secrets to a successful BI deployment, etc.

The book is well written and is an easy read. The content is comprehensive and provides an excellent overview for newbie's in the ICT world, who want to quickly find out what BI is all about. At the same time it is a welcome overview and reference for the experienced IT professional and consultant.
One negative point applies to the title. "for Dummies" sounds derogatory for the content of this book. It is written professionally and the content has more than sufficient depth to be considered a professional book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and experienced several aha moments and confirmations of past experience.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone involved in the ICT industry.

The reviewer Marinus M. Grootenboer is a consultant and program/project manager with extensive international experience. As ICT Project Manager (PMP certified) he managed large system implementations in Europe and the USA for a variety of industries, such as software vendors, airlines and gaming companies. He also developed project management methodologies for European and American organizations.

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