Chapter 6

BUSINESS ANALYTICS

AND DATA VISUALIZATION

Pages 256-272; 289-292Also pages 3-15 of the e-Book

– Analytics

The science of analysis– Business Analytics (BA)

The application of models to analyze business data. BA involves using DSS tools, especially models, in assisting decision makers; essentially a form of OLAP decision support

Business Analytics

This is a nice overview slide for BA. Many of these topics are actually covered over multiple chapters.

An information system that enables the user, while at a PC, to query the system, conduct an analysis, and so on.

• Drill-downThe investigation of information in detail (e.g., finding not only total sales but also sales by region, by product, or by salesperson).

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

– OLTP concentrates on processing repetitive transactions in large quantities and conducting simple manipulations

– OLAP involves examining many data items complex relationships

– OLAP may analyze relationships and look for patterns, trends, and exceptions

OLAP versus OLTP

• Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP)OLAP implemented via a specialized multidimensional database (or data store) that summarizes transactions into multidimensional views ahead of time

• Relational OLAP (ROLAP)The implementation of an OLAP database on top of an existing relational database

Types of OLAP

Reports and Queries

• Ad hoc query

A query that cannot be determined prior to the moment the query is issued

• Structured Query Language (SQL)

A data definition and management language for relational databases. SQL front ends most relational DBMS

Measures

A summarizable numerical value that you use to monitor how well the business doing.

eg. How many units of the product were sold?

What is total sales revenue?

How many defective products were made?

How many people responded to an ad?

One may use different aggregation techniques when presenting the values of measures

eg. Sum, Average, Max, Min

The different characteristics by which the measure values may be presented to the decision-maker

Eg. No. of units sold may be presented by region, by product, by salesperson, and by time (four dimensions)

Dimensions

Cube A measure and its associated dimensions

Eg. The cube below shows the number of units sold measure along the product, region and calendar year dimensions

Web Analytics The application of business analytics activities to

Web-based processes, typically e-commerce • Clickstream data

Data that provide a trail of the user’s activities and show the user’s browsing patterns (e.g., which sites are visited, which pages, how long)

• Clickstream analysis

The analysis of the above data

Highly useful in designing Web sites; helps to keep customer on the site, to make purchases, and revisit the site later

Advanced BA*

• Data mining and predictive analysis – Data mining – Predictive analysis

Use of tools that help determine the probable future outcome for an event or the likelihood of a situation occurring. These tools also identify relationships and patterns

* This topic will be further developed in Chapter 7