Operational Intelligence Solutions

When you hear the term ''operational intelligence,'' the first thing that comes to mind may likely be secret military undertakings. But you'd be only partially right. In modern parlance, operational intelligence has much more to do with understanding the ways in which businesses function, grow, and operate within the contemporary technological framework. Put simply, operational intelligence monitors business processes as they occur within a company's computer systems, dispensing data on how smoothly (or poorly) such systems are working.

The main purpose behind operational intelligence is to identify where a company’s operating system is working and where it needs to be fine-tuned or, in some cases, completely overhauled. A good operational intelligence system will also present businesses with hitherto unknown opportunities with regard to increasing efficiency and profits.

More than anything, operational intelligence helps company managers and operations executives quantify three key aspects of business:

Business efficiency
The effect of IT infrastructure on business
The effect of business activities on revenues

These three barometers are calculated by measuring business activity and a number of metrics in real time. The metrics are then inputted into one or more channels which display the information in graph or picture form for analysis. These metrics also serve the dual purpose of opening the door for further analysis, specifically executing root cause analysis.

Operational intelligence solutions come in a variety of forms and include the following standard features:

Real-time monitoring
Real-time situation detection
Real-time dashboards for different user roles
Correlation of events
Industry-specific dashboards
Multidimensional analysis
Root cause analysis
Time series and trending analysis

The most popular solutions also come with a standard set of technology components, which include:

Complex event processing (CEP) (Real-time situation detection, real-time window calculations)
Metadata framework to model and link events to resources
Dashboard customization and personalization
Multi-channel publishing and notification
Dimensional database
Root cause analysis
Multi-protocol event collection

A popular operational intelligence solutions program is the SAS operations package which deals primarily with retail operations. For many retailers, utilizing this program can help manage a variety of necessary tasks for any operations executive, including the following individual programs:

SAS Supplier Relationship Management. Helps businesses evaluate suppliers by consolidating supplier base and reducing risk. It also helps with complex functions like scorecarding, commodity classification, and decision support.
SAS IT Management Solutions. An invaluable tool in evaluating the ever-changing face of hardware and database configurations, giving businesses full control of their IT management resources.
SAS Financial Intelligence. Highlights the financial processes of business by making a whole host of complex and drawn-out tasks much simpler and easy to understand, including planning, reporting, budgeting, consolidation, risk assessment, forecasting, strategy development, and the audit process.
SAS Human Capital Management. Allows managers to understand workforce trends and then tailor their recruitment needs to where shortages are most likely to occur within the business staff.
SAS Solutions for Retail. Software designed to not only make operations easier, but to help foster customer loyalty to give businesses a competitive edge over the market.

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Operational Intelligence Solutions