Benefits of Business Intelligence
The business intelligence or BI can be stated as the technology driven procedure to analyse the data and present the actionable information for the purpose of helping executives, corporate end users and managers and hence making the informed business decision. Proper analysis is to be prepared and several queries are developed as well as run and then reports are created (I??K, Jones & Sidorova, 2013). The data visualizations and dashboards are also created for the purpose of making the analytical results accessible and available to the corporate decision makers or operational workers. The common functionalities of the technologies of business intelligence are reporting, data mining, bench marking, analytical processing, predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics and text mining. The following research report outlines a brief discussion on business intelligence application in the health industry.
For the constant increment in the number of data sources as well as the complexity of the data that is being generated in all types of organizations; there is a significant requirement of the advanced analytics for the purpose of supporting the decision making capabilities (Abelló et al., 2013). The various companies as well as other internationally recognized organizations eventually need the predictive modelling or the data visualization tools or techniques from the modernized software applications of business intelligence for gaining the insights about business growth, customer satisfaction, business operations, and labour distribution, daily practices of employees as well as administration or management. The major benefits of the business intelligence or BI for any type of industry are as follows:
- Develops Efficiency in Customer Care: The first and the foremost advantage of the business intelligence within the organization or company is that is eventually develops utmost efficiency and effectiveness for the customer care. The vendors who are working in the respective company as well as other companies have subsequently observed that the entire industry comprises of business operational improvement or BOI (Wixom et al., 2014). Hence, the lack of the business intelligence strategy could be extremely distracting for that particular industry. With the help of BI, the overall management of the massive amounts of the structured as well as unstructured data will be extremely easier.
- Better Allocation of Expenses: The second important and significant advantage of the business intelligence within the specified industry is the better allocation of expenses. For the several organizations, various financial, functional as well as operational practices are addressed effectively (Isik, Jones & Sidorova, 2013). These organizations should deploy the platforms of business intelligence, which eventually allow them in making the most of the analytical capabilities as well as addressing the major challenges in the respective industry.
- Supporting or Improving the Decision Making: Another effective and important benefit of the business intelligence in the several organizations is to support as well as improve the entire process of decision making for the business. Some of the basic issues are being faced in this industry related to equipment, facilities, system operations, employee practices, risks and various others (Fan, Lau & Zhao, 2015). These types of organizations would also require a major support of the business intelligence software for the core purpose of navigating the complexities for the organizational governance. The advanced analytical capabilities are quite efficient to solve the major challenges and then connecting to the customers, operational as well as business data.
- Identification of new Revenue Opportunities: Another effective and important advantage of the business intelligence is that it subsequently identifies the new revenue opportunities (Chang, 2014). Having an ability of analysis of the data, the individual could easily obtain proper insights regarding the potential opportunities that were previously absent in the business. The user can even create the new offers for the purpose of adjusting them to the current situation of market and hence satisfying the customers.
- Successful Tracking of KPIs: The fifth important and noteworthy advantage of the business intelligence or BI is the successful tracking of the KPIs or key performance indicators. Proper notifications and alters are obtained every time when the data is being changed about any particular key performance indicator (Sauter, 2014). For the presence of business intelligence, whenever the data is being changed, the user gets proper notifications and could eventually drill down for checking the requirement and importance of the data.
Following is the summary table of each and every above mentioned advantage of business intelligence:
Serial Number |
Benefits of Business Intelligence |
Characteristics of BI Benefits |
1. |
Develops Efficiency in Customer Care |
Provides efficiency during customer care and provides accuracy in data. Customers get satisfied with the organizational products and services. |
2. |
Better Allocation of Expenses |
The organizational costs or expenses are properly allocated and hence the organizational employees do not face any issue (Lim, Chen & Chen, 2013). |
3. |
Supporting or Improving the Decision Making |
The entire decision making process is improvised and supported with the help of business intelligence and since provides accurate data, the decisions could be easily undertaken without any kind of issue or complexity. |
4. |
Identification of new Revenue Opportunities |
Several new revenue opportunities are identified and hence the business could easily enjoy profit from the applications of business intelligence (Wu, Chen & Olson, 2014). |
5. |
Successful Tracking of Key Performance Indicators |
The KPIs or the key performance indicators are well tracked with the help of business intelligence applications and thus the employees get a better idea of their work profile. |
Table 1: Summary Table of Business Intelligence Benefits
Business intelligence has proved to be quite effective and efficient for each and every industry and has provided some of the most significant and important advantages to the users. Amongst all of these industries, one of the major industry is the health care industry (Kimball et al., 2015). This health care industry is the proper aggregation as well as integration of the sectors in an economic system. It is responsible for providing services and goods so that the patients could be treated with palliative, rehabilitative, preventive and curative care. There are some of the major and the most significant applications of business intelligence that have proven to be extremely effective for the health care industry. The users present visualization and then allow the health care company to come up with the upgraded as well as proper informed strategies. Since, there is the latest trend of inventions and technologies, numerous applications of business intelligence are available for the varied analysis (Laursen & Thorlund, 2016). The most effective and important applications suitable for the health care industry are as follows:
- Performance Metrics: The first and the foremost application of BI for the health care industry is performance metrics. The patient health could be eventually measured and noted with the help of this particular application of business intelligence. For health care organizations, it is extremely vital to measure and take a regular follow up of the heath information of the patients (Vukši?, Bach & Popovi?, 2013). Benchmarking as well as performance metrics is responsible for providing this type of advantage to the health care industry. Moreover, the business leaders could easily progress towards their business goals.
- Knowledge Management System: Another important and effective application of the business intelligence for the betterment of health care industry is knowledge management system. This particular system is majorly concerned with proper creation, utilization, distribution or management of the knowledge. This knowledge is present within the doctors and nurses, so that they could treat the patients better. The regulatory compliance is also checked with this knowledge management system (Howson, 2013). The entire process of treatment would be extremely easier for the physicians or hospitals since they would be able to segregate the doctors or nurses as per their specialization.
- Decision Support System: The third important and noteworthy application of the business intelligence is business support system or DSS. This particular system is responsible for supporting the several organizational or business related decision making activities. These systems then serve the respective planning, operations and management levels for the organization (Debortoli, Müller & vom Brocke, 2014). Within a health care organization, it is extremely important to undertake the correct and relevant decisions so that there is lesser complexities of patient care. The structured and the unstructured decision related issues are well resolved with this application of business application.
- Expert System: This is yet another important or vital application of the business intelligence, which could be efficient for the health care industry. Expert system enables the organizations in staying competitive within the world and hence requiring a faster processing of increased and diversified higher volume information. The intelligent technologies as well as applications of business intelligence could eventually provide the most accurate, immediate and automatic understanding of text messages or data. The data of the patients hence could be easily encoded by the health care professionals and physicians of the respective health care industry.
- Data Mining Systems: The next popular application of this BI or business intelligence within the health care industry is data mining system. It is the significant procedure to discover several patterns within the larger data sets after the proper involvement of methods in the subsequent intersection of database system, machine learning and statistics (Kasemsap, 2015). Hence, the system of data mining could easily extract the patient’s information from any particular data set with the intelligent methods for the purpose of transforming the data to relevant information within a comprehensible structure.
- Reporting System: This is the sixth suitable application of business intelligence that is efficient for the health care industry. This particular system could easily integrate as well as process the data by proper sorting, grouping, formatting and summing up. Since, these health care organizations have to deal with patients’ data, it is extremely vital for them to integrate and process the data to avoid any type of complexity in the system.
Following is the summary table of each and every above mentioned application of business intelligence in health care industry:
Applications of Business Intelligence |
Characteristics of the Applications |
Competitive Advantages by the Applications |
Performance Metrics |
Checks the performance of the patients and provide notifications |
Gets accurate data |
Knowledge Management System |
Shares knowledge about best practices and products amongst the customers and employees. |
Helps in improving the decisions by properly publishing the physician’s knowledge (Sallam et al., 2014). |
Decision Support System |
Enables decision makers in collaborating irrespective of time and location. |
Helps to improve decision in a shorter period. |
Expert System |
Encodes human knowledge for making easier diagnosis. |
Expert knowledge is encoded, saved and processed. |
Data Mining Systems |
Uses statistical technique for finding patterns. |
Patterns are discovered easily for predicting future outcomes. |
Reporting System |
Integration and processing of data. |
Improves decisions by providing accurate information. |
Table 2: Summary Table of BI Applications
This research contribution has found out that business intelligence is extremely efficient for any industry. These technologies eventually aim in allowing for an easier interpretation of the big data. The proper identification of the newer opportunities as well as implementation of the effective strategy on the basis of insights could provide the businesses with subsequent competitive market advantages as well as long term stability. The business intelligence could be utilized by the enterprises for supporting a wider range of business related decisions ranging from the operational to the strategic. BI or business intelligence consists of the strategies as well as technologies that are being utilized by the enterprises for proper data analysis of the significant business information. The technologies eventually provide the historical, predictive and current views of several business operations. For the health care industry, the major applications are expert system, data mining system, reporting system, performance metrics, decision support system and knowledge management system. This research report has added significant value to the area of business intelligence. Proper understanding of BI applications is provided here. After completing the research, it is being found that BI applications could be quite effective for health care industry. This particular industry subsequently entails the respective software solutions for analysing the data, which are fed by the users as input. Moreover, due to the presence of BI applications like KMS and DSS, the health industry would be extremely beneficial.
Explanation of Business Intelligence Application in Health Industry
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that the technologies of business intelligence could easily handle the large amounts of unstructured and structured data for helping in the identification, development and even creating the new strategic business opportunities. The basic operating decision eventually includes the product positioning as well as pricing and the strategic business decision includes goals, directions and priorities at a wider level. This business intelligence eventually encompasses the broad variety of applications, methodologies and tools, which enable the organizations or companies to collect the confidential data from several external sources and internal systems. It is extremely effective and efficient for the proper combination of data derived from the market, where the company could operate easily. The above research report has clearly the proper application of BI technologies in the health industry.
References
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