Types of Data Sources

Data is undeniably important in today's business world. Businesses are analyzing a seemingly infinite number of data sources to gain insights into virtually every activity –both internal and external to their organization. Right now, it appears that businesses can't get enough big data for analysis - the potential and benefits on offer are tantalizing, as well as actionable, and can make all the difference for today's businesses.

However, as businesses' appetite for data increases, so does their search for usable data sources. Businesses can obtain and collect big data in a variety of places, both inside and outside their own enterprises. There are currently a number of data brokers who will provide information lists –and while these may appear to be useful, it is up to the organization to examine and make the most use of this data.

Thousands of transactions are tracked and recorded every day by most businesses. Not only customer purchases –which could include information like the customer's name, the products/items sold, the shop from which the purchase has been made, and the date and time of the purchase –but also warehouse activity, inventory transactions, workplace hours and time off, and daily operating costs.

In reality, most businesses are practically drowning in data. If only there was a way to gather all of this information in one place and use a simple report to make sense of it all (or set of reports). Companies who are able to extract relevant data from their mountain of data acquire new perspectives on their business, allowing them to become leaner and more competitive.

Organizations are in the process of gathering, organizing, and analyzing business data in order to turn it into meaningful and actionable information. Organizations can use business intelligence to gain a better understanding of their organization, which can lead to new opportunities, improvements to existing operations or processes, competitive advantages, and more. For example, they can: 

• Identify top-selling products by region, store, or salesperson
• Identify trends, both good and bad, early on
• Create ad-hoc financial reports
• Track competitors in their ad-hoc financial reports.

Business Intelligence (BI)

The act of turning data into information and ultimately into knowledge is known as business intelligence (BI). Customer needs, customer decision-making processes, competition, industry conditions, and general economic, technological, and cultural trends are all common sources of data. In the early 1990s, business intelligence (BI) was established in the industrial sector in response to managers' requests for more efficient and effective enterprise data analysis in order to better understand their organization's status and improve decision-making. 

Business intelligence enables companies to make well-informed business choices, giving them a competitive advantage. This is especially true when businesses can extrapolate data from external variables and make accurate predictions about future trends or economic situations. Firms can make decisions that benefit them after business intelligence is collected properly and used proactively.

The major goal of business intelligence is to help companies make better decisions. Business intelligence reveals the following:

The company's performance compared to its competitors Customer behavior and buying patterns have changed. Market dynamics, future trends,demographic and economic data; the firm's capabilities the social, regulatory, and political context are all important factors to consider.Businesses recognize that in today's highly competitive, fast-paced, and ever-changing business world, the speed with which they respond and adapt to change is a critical competitive quantity. Business intelligence enables them to use information obtained to respond to changes rapidly and continuously.

Gathering, preparing, and evaluating data are the most important tasks. The data must be of excellent quality. The data is collected, converted, cleansed, loaded, and stored in a warehouse from numerous sources. The relevant data is pulled from the data warehouse for a given business area. As it moves through multiple phases of informational metamorphosis, a BI organization fully uses data at every phase of the BI architecture. Raw data is created in operational environments, where transactional data is poured in from all corners of the company. As a result, this is the vision of a business intelligence organization: From origin to action, data flows naturally. Furthermore, the data is fully exploited at each step in the flow to ensure that the enterprise's information value grows. Of course, building any organization's vision is a challenge for BI.

A sensible approach to a continuous improvement loop that includes BI is: 

1. obtaining information 
2. Taking decisions and actions based on that information
3. Measuring the success of the project using preset metrics (a fancy phrase for measures)
4. Taking the lessons learned from one decision and applying them to the next.

Any part of an organization can be involved in the process of using data to make better decisions. If operational data can teach us anything, whether it's about consumer behavior, financial data, or something else, BI can help. A team may make better judgments by applying BI practices to transform raw data into relevant insights. The actions made in response to those decisions provide a new set of results, which can be fed back into the system as new empirical evidence for drawing the next set of conclusions.

Companies that use BI reap a slew of benefits. It can help companies respond quickly to changes in financial conditions, customer preferences, and supply chain operations by eliminating a lot of the guesswork within the organization, improving communication between departments while coordinating activities, and allowing organizations to react quickly to changes in financial conditions, customer preferences, and supply chain operations. BI boosts a company's overall performance. Information is frequently recognized as a company's second most precious resource (its most precious resources are its people). As a result, when a corporation can make decisions based on current and reliable data, it may improve its performance. BI also speeds up decision-making because acting fast and correctly on information before competitors can frequently lead to competitive advantage. It will also improve the customer satisfaction by enabling prompt and appropriate responses to customer issues and priorities.

In the mid-1990s, academics grew interested in BI, and 10 years of research transformed a collection of basic procedures into a well-founded approach to data extraction and processing.

Sources of business intelligence data 

According to the literature, there are three main types of data that enter into a data warehouse: data cane internal data, external data, and personal data.

1) Internal data.

Companies can mine data in a variety of ways from internal sources. These are some of them:

a) Transactional data and POS information: A company's financial and transactional systems contain one of the most powerful sources of data. Companies can use this data to harvest both current and historical data about their own business transactions, as well as information about their consumers' shopping habits. An organization can gain valuable insights from these facts, such as methods to cut costs and stay on budget, as well as key patterns relating to their consumers' purchasing habits and preferences.

b) Customer relationship management system: Businesses can mine data within their CRM systems in addition to their purchasing and shopping data. Client affiliations, localities, and other regional or geographical characteristics might help get a better idea of where the customers are located. These CRM details become much more effective when paired with their transactional data.

c) Internal records: A company's own internal documents are becoming more valuable than ever, especially in the age of cloud computing. Internal forms that have been digitized can be a valuable source of information, especially when it comes to the company's activities, regulations, and procedures. Emails, Word documents, PDF, XML, and a variety of other internal documents may all be mined for big data, according to an infographic from Kapow Software.

d) Archives: When it comes to internal information, companies should not limit themselves to merely the most recent data. Historical data can also be quite telling, which is why Kapow Software suggests searching through the company's archival documents and data streams.

e) Other business applications: While CRM is one of the most reliable internal sources of big data, this does not ignore the use of data mining of other internal applications. Other platforms used by employees, including project management, marketing, efficiency, enterprise asset management, human resources, cost management, and automation apps, can also be quite valuable. It's in a company's best interest to let the nature of their big data endeavor guide their decisions on which sources to use while mining these sources. For example, if a company wants to learn more about its present budget, tools like spending tracking and resource management will come in handy.

f) Device sensors: The Internet of Things is expanding every day, bringing with it more and more unique data to analyze. Companies that use gadgets with sensors and network connectivity can take advantage of this data as well. These include IoT devices that the business employs in its own offices as well as those that it sells to customers. For example, automotive sensors installed in a company's fleet of vehicles can provide a lot of information regarding usage, mileage, gas consumption, and trip costs. Companies that sell fitness or other health monitors can also collect, anonymize, and analyze this data.