Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data to Big Impact

Chen, H., Chiang, R.H.L. & Storey, V.C., 2012. Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data to Big Impact. MIS Quarterly, 36(4), pp.1165—1188.

Introduction

The following article discusses the rise of Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) and its growing importance for businesses. Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google and emeritus professor at the University of California commented: "So what's getting ubiquitous and cheap? Data. And what is complementary to data? Analysis."

The authors distinguish the following BI&A flavors:

1. BI&A 1.0 - Database based and limited to structured content
• already integrated into commercial enterprise IT systems
2. BI&A 2.0 - Web-based and handles unstructured content; includes Web intelligence and web analytics
• Web site design, product placement optimizations, customer transaction analysis, market structure analysis, product recommendations
• social media - companies treat the market as a "conversation" rather than traditional business-to-customer one way marketing
3. BI&A 3.0 - Mobile and sensor-based content
• handles data obtained from mobile phones and data, devices equipped with RFID, barcodes, and radio tags ("Internet of things"
• customization, location-aware, person-centered, and context-relevant operations

Applications

1. E-Commerce and Market Intelligence
• long-tail marketing, serving millions of potential niche markets)
• market intelligence: Netflix Prize competition (algorithm to predict user movie ratings; $1 million price for the best algorithm)
2. E-Government and Politics
3. Science and Technology
• collaborative approaches
• big data analytics for analyzing data streams
4. Smart Health and Wellbeing
5. Security and Public Safety