Business Intelligence, 2nd Edition

Chapter 15

Deriving Insight from Collections of Data

Introduction

An interesting aspect of the business intelligence (BI) process is that although to a large degree it relies on relatively well-defined methods, architectures, and techniques, much of the success of a BI program stems from insight and intuition related to the use of data. Sometimes it is valuable to consider how typical data domains and associated collections (such as customer or product data sets) are used together with other sources of information to lead the analyst in drawing inferences and implications that can lead to profitable action.

For example, by itself geographical data may not be of great interest, but merging customer transactions with rolled-up psychographic profiles ...