Visual Analytics for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Visual Analytics for Enterprise Business Intelligence
Visual Analytics is “the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by visual interactive interfaces". Visual Analytics for Enterprise Business Intelligence is the graphical representation of data and information that can help organizations in resolving specific business needs and challenges without taxing valuable IT resources.
As described by Edward Tufte, "Excellent graphics exemplify the deep fundamental principles of analytical design in action. If this were not the case, then something might well be wrong with the principles." As the Internet cloud continues to expand and encompass new devices, IP network engineers have yet to find a response to the question of how to prioritize information and issues as they arise. Unable to see all of their devices at the top level, technical personnel must drill down through layers of information to diagnose problems.
Principles for the Analysis and presentation of data:
Principle 1: Show comparisons, contrasts, differences
Principle 2: Show Causality, Mechanism, Systematic Structure, ExplanationPrinciple 3: Show multivariate data; that is, show more than 1 or 2 variables
Principle 4: Completely integrate words, numbers, images, diagrams
Principle 5: Thoroughly describe the evidence
Principle 6: Analytical presentations ultimately stand or fall depending on the quality, relevance, and integrity of their content.
Today, almost every entity’s economic value chain is dependent on IP Networking. So the status of that network, and the components in it, are critical information for many groups within an organization, especially those that interact with customers. Advances in visual analytics can provide organizations with a better way to monitor and manage IP Networks. And these advances offer specific benefits within the technical, operating and customer realms. Because pictures are easy to comprehend and universally understood, they can travel beyond the network operations center (NOC). In contrast, the IP Networking monitoring and management systems in use today tend to stay in the technical IT, vendor, outsourcer or MSP arenas. Icons that incorporate pictures can communicate a wealth of information and allow non-technical personnel, management and customers to see and comprehend information that has been “off-limits” or incomprehensible for years.
Visual analytics elements include: capturing copies of selected data in a non-disruptive format, the capability of retrieving data from a multitude of databases, spreadsheets, public sources and web portals. Requirements also include platform independency, security and data retention parameters. Capturing historical but fresh data in a time based fashion is a key component.
Business Intelligence
Visual analytics is important to business intelligence as a decision support system. Visual analytics as a business intelligence solution can help organizations that need to resolve specific business needs and challenges without taxing valuable IT resources. Stephen Few, a leading expert in data visualization for data sense-making and communication, has stated “ Visual representations of data take advantage of the unique ability of visual perception to detect meaningful patterns that might otherwise remain hidden.” Few also states: “How can we add the variable of time…..? The Answer can be found in animation…..”A few things should be considered when thinking about using visual analytics for business intelligence:
*Creating visual analytics tools that are flexible and complement existing solutions should be preferred, as standardizing a single application or platform to address technological needs has proven difficult and ineffective.
*Visibility of the data within the company is the only true way it can be utilized for business intelligence. Visual analytics helps this in that data can be viewed at a top visual level, which allows for easier comprehension.
Business intelligence, used with visual analytics, can provide a key competitive advantage by incorporating the above factors and helping companies gain critical insights into all parts of their business.
Who Uses Visual Analytics for Business Effects:
Technical Team Members
Using detailed visual cues that reflect current conditions to monitor and manage the network gives technical staff several benefits:
*Seeing much more information in the first glance, avoiding the need to click-click-click to see the details.
*Faster diagnosis of issues using information at the top level, especially when viewing historical, time sequenced icons for a deteriorating device
*Faster and easier prioritization of actions - determining the next best thing to do
*Leveraging more cost effective labor for the monitoring function.
Result: Less guessing and better priority setting, faster resolution of technical issues, fewer failures due to early diagnosis and intervention, and lower labor costs.
Staff Serving Customers and Management
Icons contain organic details about related network components in a picture format that can be understood by non-technical staff and management triggering:
*Insight for non-technical people whose jobs and responsibilities depend on the technical infrastructure
*Automatic information feeds that don’t rely on the technical team communication cycle with their non-technical colleagues
*Communicating status directly to operational personnel—especially those who interact with customers
*Recognition that today’s revenue models depend on IP network functionality (and we don’t mean just for on-line shopping)
Result: Earlier notification to trigger effective reactions, improved management of customer expectations, appropriate field location reactions and priority setting.
New and Existing Customers
Icons can readily be shared with customers and understood by them:
*Providing first-hand confirmation of network status, without having to rely on notification from the outsourcer’s NOC
*Fostering immediate understanding of status without waiting for formal SLA reports
*Yielding segmented, sorted and filtered icons that match the business responsibilities of each viewer
*No middle layers, no extra reports to decipher, no waiting for information - it is always there and it is always timely
Result: Enhanced differentiation for vendor by offering customers an immediate and updated view they can understand, add-on revenue opportunities for vendor to generate incremental margin, enhanced customer retention, better customer relationships.

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