Business Intelligence: Making Better Decisions Faster [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Vitt (Author), Michael Luckevich (Author), Stacia Misner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 2002

This book illustrates how organizations can make better, faster decisions about their customers, partners, and operations by turning mountains of data into valuable business information that's at the fingertips of decision makers. It describes what's involved in using business intelligence to bring together information, people, and technology to create successful business strategies-and how to execute those strategies with confidence. Real-life case studies show how world leaders in finance, manufacturing, and retail have successfully implemented business intelligence solutions and detail the benefits they have reaped.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 202 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (May 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735616272
• ISBN-13: 978-0735616271
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #364,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Technical Support

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Concise, Practical and Inspiring Advice, January 9, 2004

By 

PWG (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Business Intelligence: Making Better Decisions Faster (Hardcover)

Techies will enjoy learning from real world examples of business intelligence technologies. Business leaders will appreciate how complex technical and business topics are tackled from various perspectives - what is BI, how BI will help your organization, and the most helpful chapter, how to actually identify, start and implement a BI solution.

Only wish the authors had spent a little more time identifying pitfalls, but that is why you hire experts to help you out.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great primer, March 29, 2005

By 

Michael Bingle (Basking Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Business Intelligence: Making Better Decisions Faster (Hardcover)

First of all, I will have to admit that I am a Microsoft advocate. I like their solutions and I think very highly of what they have to offer with SQL Server and Analysis Services.

This book lays down a good foundation for anyone to follow. It explains the concept of BI, the uses of BI, and the payback of BI. What more do you want.

I have been in charge of an SAP/BW group for a large consumer electronics company for the past 4 years. SAP's architecture for BI is very expensive, inflexible, and limited. Using Microsoft's concepts of BI would be cheaper, very flexible, with much more capabilities.

So, grab this book, read it, then read it again. Install SQL Server 2k. Install Analysis Services (comes with SQL Server 2k) and install SQL Servers Service Packs 1-3).

Then experiement with what they are telling you in this book and you will be amazed at what you can do....and cheaply!!!

Good Luck!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent starting point for DW/BI background knowledge, February 28, 2008

By 

Jeremy Oosthuizen (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Business Intelligence: Making Better Decisions Faster (Hardcover)

I chose this book, because I needed to get some background on BI fairly quickly. It satisfied that need very well. It is quite well-written and some parts read more like a story, which is quite the opposite of the "just the facts, ma'am" approach of Kimball and his associates. (That is not a stab at Kimball. I am a big fan and I believe they have so much to say that they don't really have the space to make it story-like. Kimball has a completely different goal with his books -- but this is not a Kimball-review.)

At the start, the book introduces us to the Director of Imports at a gift and novelty wholesale company. Her initiative of selling a certain item didn't work so well, and we get to know the steps she has taken to analyze the data to find out what happened. Along the way, we are introduced to many Data Warehousing / Business Intelligence (DW/BI) concepts.

After the story, some basic DW/BI terms are explained in more detail. The authors explain quite well where they fit in the process of getting from mounds of static data, to a useable set of data for analytical purposes, which they call the BI Roadmap.

The book contains five case studies of a few pages each, which help fix the process of implementation.

If you know nothing about DW/BI and you quickly need a framework on which to hang whatever knowledge you gain elsewhere, I'd say this is a great start. Also, if you've implemented a DW/BI system and failed, this may help get you back to your roots. However, if you've read a lot of in-depth material and maybe have an implementation or two (successful) under your belt, this will only serve as a relaxing read; you won't gain much new knowledge from it.

I give it 5 stars, because it does what I think it attempts to do. It gives you background knowledge and a framework; it does not attempt to be an encyclopaedic work and desk reference, like Kimball's books are. Therefore it reads in a fraction of the time it would take to read Kimball. If background is what you're looking for, enjoy.