With BI and BPM more closely aligned, organizations can apply predictive analytics to anticipate problems, even use rules engines from the likes of Fair Isaac, ILOG and Pegasystems to automate remedial decision-making. There's also room at this intersection for innovative start-ups. In February, Altosoft launched Insight, which uses adapters to pull data from processes and other sources, perform predictive analysis and then use simulations to show the potential effect of changes to processes.
This BI-process synergy fits with larger organizational objectives to drive BI implementation through business models. In other words, rather than start with the data requirements, a model-driven approach looks first at what needs to be accomplished in sales, finance, product design or other business areas. Business modeling requires a richer metadata and semantic integration layer than most data warehouses currently have. However, with the adoption of XML-based schemas, business process modeling languages, such as BPEL, and service-oriented architectures could accelerate the evolution of information integration to support model-driven BI. n
David Stodder, now VP and research director for information management at Ventana Research, was previously editorial director and editor in chief of Intelligent Enterprise, a CMP Technology publication. He has been covering BI and related IT topics for nearly 20 years. Write to him at [email protected].
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