Just as accurate,
timely, and dependable information is important to the intelligence community
(a plug there for you Intel folks), it is of paramount importance to have
relevant information that supports/determines the best decision possible within
the business realm as well. Succinctly put, “Information impacts Business
Intelligence….”

“What is Business
Intelligence (BI)?”, you might ask. According to one of my favorite
IT-related Websites (http://www.cio.com) BI is described as, “an umbrella
term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an
organization’s raw data. BI as a discipline is made up of several related
activities, including data mining, online analytical processing, querying and
reporting. Companies use BI to improve decision making, cut costs and identify
new business opportunities. BI is more than just corporate reporting and more
than a set of tools to coax data out of enterprise systems. CIOs use BI to
identify inefficient business processes that are ripe for re-engineering. With
today’s BI tools, business folks can jump in and start analyzing data
themselves, rather than wait for IT to run complex reports. This
democratization of information access helps users back up—with hard
numbers—business decisions that would otherwise be based only on gut feelings
and anecdotes. Although BI holds great promise, implementations can be dogged
by technical and cultural challenges. Executives have to ensure that the data
feeding BI applications is clean and consistent so that users trust
it….” (Source:
http://www.cio.com/article/40296/Business_Intelligence_Definition_and_Solutions)

Examples of use of BI,
as indicated in your textbook, include:

– Analyzing popular
vacation locations, along with current flight listings (Airlines),

– Comparing the
demographics of patients with critical illnesses (Health care),

– Predicting sales,
levels of inventory, and distribution (or means of distribution) (Retail)

Virtually every business
or organization can ideally benefit from the use of BI; it can help answer
critical questions that impact the business or organization’s future.

As a
Response to this Conference Topic
, refer to the Questions in Chapter 6, under
the section “Learning Outcome Review” (pgs. 239,240)

Select two (2) out of the eight questions, and do some
research (Internet sites are fine–do NOT use the Wikipedia Website!!) on the
topic addressed within the respective question(s):

#1 – The four traits
determining the value of information,

#2 – A database,
database management system (DBMS), and the relational database model,

#3 – The business
advantages of a relational database,

#4 – Benefits (from a
business perspective) of a data-driven Website

#5 – The data warehouse,

#6 – Extraction, transformation,
and loading (ETL) and the role of a data mart, in business,

#7 – Data mining, and
the three common forms for mining data (structured, and unstructured), and

#8 – The advantages of
using BI to support managerial decision-making

Write a well-thought-out,
comprehensive, 2-3 paragraph article on each of the two (2) questions you
have selected. In addition to describing (in your own terms) “what”
the subject-matter is, give a detailed example of how it is used in today’s
business or organization.

Properly cite your
reference(s), for each question you choose – do not use your textbook as a
reference, unless you (absolutely) cannot find an outside source….