Almost everyone is well aware of the fact that the IT is capable of making maintainable and sustainable competitive benefits. In the business arena, the IT is used through value chain of activities that facilitates the business organization to control and optimize the operational functions for effortless decision making process.

The IT is strategic in it’s skill by building the concept of “Value Chain” in a business o0rganization through generic value activities that are interdependent of each other. This chain comprises elements like customers, suppliers, finance, production, etc. There is a connection between these activities which makes it a value chain. These value chain activities as well as the product’s physical parts and processing is altered either by product differentiation or cutting the costs of the value activities. The IT on the whole even transforms the speed of competition.

The value of the company can be added by the IT either by increasing revenue or reduction in costs. The potential of the IT of adding value to the business firm is very different from being the source of the sustainable competitiveness.

Though, the IT’s ability to be a source of the sustainable competitive advantages is disputed and based on assumptions. The assumptions result in two theories. The correlation between IT and the sustainable competitive benefit is studied by one theory called as the Create capture and Keep paradigm. This basically relies on swapping the costs of the customers.

This theory got replaced by a resource based theory that explicates the company’s potential to use the IT to influence the basic resources as a plus and also source of the sustainable competitive edge. In this theory, when the company possesses similar resources or capability, which the other competitor company doesn’t posses, then the same constitutes as the source of the competitive edge.

But the problem is that, if the resources are constant, then it will be a great disadvantage at the cost of the company. So the same will not make a sustainable competitive edge. Simply by imitation of the IT resources of the successful company without social complexity or ambiguity might also make a sustainable competitive edge.

In any kind of organization, the IT is a potential source of competitive edge in these five methods given below:

• When the supplier is in a good position and the IT is essential and unique for the end users, then the costs borne by the consumers will be switched
• When a technology becomes a proprietary technology
• When the capital Investment in the IT enabled resource increases
• For building the IT application, some technical skills are needed
• When the managerial skills are developed for exploiting and understanding the IT application for increasing the business operations

Each and every kind of information in the firm can get positive results and has the potential to get sustainable competitive edge if you observe the following steps:

1. Assessing the potential and the existing information intensity of the process and product
2. Evaluating the probable impact of the IT on the firm
3. Identifying the rank of the activities that affects the IT first
4. Measuring how the IT can bring new business
5. Generating the action plan by taking advantages of IT

It is not just one supporting system, but also a perfect thought process contributing substantial edge, effects and the implications in the business goals.

One of those tools will have to be Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). The purpose of this article is to provide a generalized framework in which the data skimmed online can be processed and eventually embedded within the day to day infrastructure of a business.

Of course, the level of detail, investment and sophistication will vary between a small firm and the multinational organization. However the basic concepts still remain the same.

The key difference between OLAP and other data collation mechanism is that it undertakes an approach that is simultaneous navigational, hierarchical and relational. This is a far more comprehensive method than merely examining particular strands and informational patterns. If used correctly, it can enable large-scale interpretation of vast amounts of discrete and varied pieces of business intelligence into a technically relevant set of causes and effects.

In other wards the decision maker is enabled to gather seemingly unrelated pieces of information and thereby create a story that will ultimately translate into profits for the business. Often the challenge for a business decision making process is not that there is not enough information or that it is not even accurate. No, the real challenge does know what the information means for you and your people within the organization. Online Analytical Processing is just one way of making things way simpler.

It goes without saying that there will inevitably raise certain intrinsic problems where the business is using complex systems to resolve even more complex questions. One of them is accuracy: by its very nature the use of often seemingly remote data involves compromise by way of aggregates and assumptions. The thinking behind these assumptions and the criteria for selective reporting in making predictive analysis has to undergo very stringent scrutiny otherwise one single misjudgment could end up producing increasingly inaccurate data. Decisions based on bad information are almost always bad decisions.

The second problem is concerned with the manageability of the database system once it has evolved. The effective use of business intelligence requires that managers ought to be able to access the analytical process tool data on a fairly regular basis. This is not a big problem if the firm is fairly straightforward. However for the more complex business organizations, there will be practical concerns about access and maintenance.

In conclusion it would be arguable that online analytical processing vastly improves the effectiveness of business intelligence by extending the variety of sources of information and collating them in such a way as to make sense to the frontline and the key decision makers. It also addresses some of the more bureaucratic bottlenecks commonly associated with the processing of complex data. It would therefore be very shortsighted to fail to include OLAP within the mix of systems and tools that are used to collect and analysis in business intelligence modules.

If you have a particularly small business which employs less than 10 people and is primarily based locally, then chances are that you know a lot about your business or if not, just enough to make sure that it doesn’t go under. However if you are running a larger show, you may never be able to understand what goes on in your company and surely that is a recipe for disaster.

It is surprising what can be discovered about your business when you explore the rich world of business process discovery. A tool of the business intelligence model, this process enables you to map the activities of your business and you may even be able to make some improvements. In this article we will highlight some of the basic processes and outcomes involved in the business discovery process (BPD). It is possible to automate the whole BPD process so that seasonal or process variations can quite easily be identified and responsive action implemented with the minimum of fuss.

BPD more often than not is primarily based on the examination of existing data/information gleaned through structured interviews with frontline staff followed by evidence-based verification via management information systems. The latter aspect can be automated depending on the resources available. At this point it is crucial to account for human subjectivity when responding to structured or even unstructured interviews as well as the frailties of memory and bias. Verification via an independent information system will provide an estimate of the reliability of the information that is being gathered.

One school of thought is that the ultimate aim of BPD is to standardize all processes, thereby eliminating the inconsistencies of human influence. Those that believe in this approach argue that computerized processed are less likely to be subject to inaccuracy and what some call noise. Whereas standardization is generally a peripatetic business objective not least because it enables proper performance management, it is also worth noting that without human influence in operations most businesses lose customer service.

The two business resources are complementary particularly when the ultimate goal is good business intelligence. It also adds to other information resources by providing data that is well sourced and subject to referrals as well as revisits of the original data sources.

What happens then when you effectively know about your company or organization? The logical step is to move on to embedding the reports from the BPD into the business intelligence model. A fringe benefit of this is that wastage and duplication is quite easily picked up and management action would presumably follow. It also facilitates the construction of business plans and bids for funding or contracts given the fact that it is actually a detailed description of what the organization actually does. So, challenge yourself and understand your business. You never know you might like it.