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Intelligent BI

Business intelligence (BI). It's defined as a set of technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information for business purposes.

Wikipedia goes further, saying, "BI can handle enormous amounts of unstructured data to help identify, develop and otherwise create new opportunities." Wow! New opportunities. New revenue streams. Where do I sign up? How could any executive pass on that kind of opportunity?

Okay. So we're being a bit sarcastic. But why not? Business Intelligence, at least the better systems we've seen, are just not easy enough to use. They do create awesome opportunities - but more for the consultant or IT department seeking greater revenue than for its intended users.

As a firm dedicated to bringing high technology to business managers, BI represents a challenge. A challenge to put BI in the hands of business managers and not stuck in IT.

Thankfully, we may have tackled the problem. We discovered a path that leads us to the promised land. A BI tool we can be proud of.

The inspiration for our solution came from the an entirely different industry -- from the special effects industry. "Special effects?" you wonder. "What does the fantasy world of special effects have to do with the real world of business intelligence?"

Actually, more than you might expect. The special effects industry offered us a framework for our solution. What do the two situations have in common? Both Special Effects and Business Intelligence require an almost unlimited amount of creativity. In both cases a large set of data needs to be processed. In one case it may be an image. In another, data from a report. In both cases a heavy amount of processing is needed. The variety of ways data can be processed (the special effects) is up to your imagination. The kinds of processing that can be done are endless. Whether you need to take the image of a face and squeeze it into a cube, or you need to take a report and find your top four customers, the process is similar. A special effect must be applied to a set of data.

Introducing, Aestiva "Executive Snapshot"
Using this principle we built our first BI tool. It is called "Executive Snapshot." The tool allows you to apply special effects (called "calculations" in our world) to Aestiva's advanced reports. The tool, although early in its implementation, has a lot of promise because, unlike classic BI tools, setup does not require you to be an IT guru. Each calculation is a user-friendly option you select from a simple menu. We have a calculation called "Top X" for displaying top customers, vendors, etc. We also have a calculation called "Trend." It provides a trend report. Aestiva has committed itself to adding more and more calculations in the months ahead.

Over time, the calculations will provide an unprecedented level of intelligent processing. For business managers. All easy to use. The path to the solution is clear. Over time we'll have a tool we'll proudly call true "Business Intelligence."

If you would like to try Aestiva Executive Snapshot please speak to your Account Coordinator. The tool is available free of charge to Aestiva customers.
Notice: Aestiva now provides this tool with every version of Power Office. The "special affects" concept discussed has been shifted to Aestiva's reporting engine where it is also used to provide increased reporting capabilities.















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