Data Analytics and Business Intelligence

Running head: Data Analytics and Business Intelligence
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Executive Summary
In this era of business competition, it is only sensible that we adopt the best business practices
which are particularly suitable to the improvement of business performance. One such practice is
the adoption of Business intelligence architecture system to boost the process of business
analysis.
Objective
To identify a suitable enterprise-level business intelligence architecture as well as propose a
realistic implementation of the system into our business.
Process
In order to identify and recommend the best Business intelligence architecture, we examine three
different options that the business can adopt. In particular, we examine the effect of failing to
adopt any architecture at all, adopting a visualization architecture, and a reporting architecture.
Results and Recommendation
We examined the pros and cons of not adopting a BI, visualization BI architectures and reporting
BI architectures. From our examination, we note that a reporting architecture would be the most
suitable for use due to its ability to utilize visualization and dashboard BI architectures.

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Problem Statement
We purpose to identify a suitable enterprise-level business intelligence architecture as well as,
propose a realistic implementation of the system into our business. This way, we will be able to
seamlessly integrate our business analysis processes whose objectives are mainly to facilitate
business making decisions with other factors such as data collection and data analysis.
Over the past two decades, data has been at the core of business decision making processes thus
forming a backbone in the improvement of business performance. As such, the main concern
among the executive was how to obtain such data. However, the later years of the past decade
saw increased amount of data coming in to businesses, a factor which prompted the idea of
business intelligence, machine learning, data mining, etcetera.
The question no longer lies on how to collect the data but on how to leverage the enormous
amount of data being collected to the benefit of the business through its many data related
aspects.
First, let us explore the concept of business intelligence (BI), enterprise architecture and how this
two interconnect. This way, we will be able to identify the most suitable enterprise-level business
intelligence architecture to adopt and how to implement it.
Business Intelligence
Business intelligence (BI) is generally “...about how to capture, access, understand, analyze and
turn one of the most valuable assets of an enterprise - raw data - into actionable information in
order to improve business performance” (Ong, Siew, & Wong, 2011).

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Enterprise Architecture
In business practices, enterprise architecture provides a business map which comprises
information as well as systems which support it hence, enterprise architecture acts as a, “...
significant diagnostic tool for identifying the source of problems that arise and for planning
improvements” (West, 2011).
Enterprise-level Business Intelligence Architecture
Given the above definitions, we can therefore define enterprise-level business intelligence
architecture as a framework used in data organization, information management alongside
technology components which are applied in the development of business intelligence systems
for reporting and data analytics.
Stakeholders
In practice, a business intelligence dashboard is likely to have anywhere from 20 to thousands of
individuals having access to it all of who probably have different objectives and roles. Ideally, all
these users are likely to have different interpretations of the BI visualizations with different goals
and varying insight requirements.
With regard to our BI architecture, our main stakeholders will include:
i. Business executives
ii. Shareholders
iii. Software designers and developers
iv. External clients
v. Business Community

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Role of stakeholders in ensuring success of the project
Our main objective is to come up with a suitable enterprise-level business intelligence
architecture which all of our business stakeholders can identify with and apply. In this regard, it
is crucial that we include all of the relevant stakeholders throughout the whole identification and
implementation process.
As such, we expect different contributions from the stakeholders and the community as a whole
towards the project. For instance, the business executives are expected to work closely with our
clients and the IT team tasked with the implementation of the BI in design specification and
development of a relevant architecture for the business.
Shareholders are expected to provide funds and approval of the BI architecture specs in the event
that they are required to do so. Different architecture upon implementation tend to require a
number of computer specifications, in order to determine the optimal specs for various BI
systems, we will consult with Software designers and developers. In addition, the BI should be
such that it delivers specific business insights for practical application.
Expected Benefits of BI Enterprise-level Architecture
Upon implementation of the optimum BI, we hope to:
i. Increase the speed through which the business analysis team conducts data analysis,
planning and reporting
ii. Improve the reporting accuracy
iii. Facilitate better business decisions
iv. Improve operational efficiency
v. Augment the firm’s competitive advantages
vi. Increase customer satisfaction