business intelligence
Has Datawatch made the case for
a different approach to BI?
The Monarch BI Server from Datawatch has been designed to provide access to
powerful reporting mechanisms without requiring the skills or training to use
the Monarch desktop product itself. We investigate whether it has succeeded.
Ask half a dozen reasonably educated people what the word intelligence means,
and there will be at least that number of different answers. Taken back to basics
and its Latin origins, it means little more than understanding. By today’s standards,
however, that is an incomplete description, as it is only part of what is needed when
a student secures seven starred A grade passes at A-level, or the nation’s intelligence
services are able to keep the country’s security several steps ahead of the terrorists.
Through centuries of usage, the meaning of to weather the economic storm really does
the term has evolved to encompass a com- need to know whether a system claiming to
plete portfolio of intellectual assets that al- deliver ‘business intelligence’ can make a
lows those who possess it to stand out from greater impact on the organisation’s perform-
the rest of their field. ance than a more simple analysis tool pro-
It is worth questioning whether ‘business grammed to extract relevant streams of data
intelligence’ is a valid extension of that con- from its information systems.
cept. Do managers reach the correct decision If the BI solution can deliver information
because they have copious volumes of data which is accurate, encompassing and time-
at their fingertips, or because they have a se- sensitive without the need for an executive to
lectively distilled extract of those facts and have an advanced degree in financial pro-
figures in a format that most readily lends it- gramming, then there is a case to be made.
self to high-quality decision-making? Perhaps more to the point, it is essential that
Argue the point too closely, and it can end a BI tool can deliver its intelligence wherever in
up as a debate on the number of angels who an organisation it is needed, and without its
can dance on the head of a pin. But at a more being restricted to more specialist users of
practical level, the CEO of a company trying the technology.
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The Informed Executive
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