The Spatial & Visual Components for Effective Business Intelligence

Our ability to exploit the massive amounts of complex, disparate data will never be resolved by the traditional technology we introduce or the common techniques we attempt to implement.Pie charts and other typical graphics, for example, fall short of supporting better decision making.A pie chart is simply not sufficient to interrogate a large OLAP cube or provide the necessary insight from the data pushed into our dashboards.¹

Innovative visualization technology is necessary to effectively synthesize detailed data into information and present this content in an understandable manner to users.However, for leading business intelligence (BI) environments, this visualization must be based on spatial (geographic) data. Effective BI, therefore, is dependent on the following two capabilities:

Visualization.Interrelationships, specifically those based on geographic data, that might otherwise be difficult to describe or explain, are often readily understood when visually presented.Irrelevant of how abstract or complex, effective visualization exposes the information insight.

Spatial Data. Typical BI systems handle the who, what and when, but the where is vastly underexploited.² Spatial data, the where of BI, does two things: First, it enhances the who by binding third party data from companies like Dun & Bradstreet to your existing data.Second, it enables analysis for the where.

Integrating spatial data and visualization technology delivers accurate, high impact information content.Tools like Map Intelligence, from Integeo Pty Ltd,³ foster this integration for BI applications, transforming data into human understanding and actionable insight.

Read the rest of the arcticle at Directions Magazine.