Multidimensional analysis has emerged as a business tool that enables organizations to obtain the maximum value from their corporate data. Indeed, it allows users to analyse information in a business context – enabling them to compare product or channel performance with other important dimensions such as regions, customers and time.
Put in layman’s terms, multidimensional analysis essentially makes sense of the large volumes of data generated by ERP systems.
With a multi-dimensional view, organizations can quickly gain insight into business performance and trends. It allows companies to stay that one step ahead of business changes which in turn provide them with a competitive edge.
With multi-dimensional analysis, organizations are finally finding the answers to their commonly asked, but important, questions.
Now, organizations can extend the analysis reach and share findings company-wide with effective reporting that in turn enable them know sooner, understand faster, and react quickly.
Why OLAP?
Currently there are two frequently adopted multi-dimensional technologies-online analytical processing (OLAP) and dimensionally aware relational schemas. These technologies are widely regarded as the most cost-effective tools which not only drive down total cost of ownership but provide the highest return on investment.
In the case of OLAP it allows organizations to quickly conduct analysis. The speed is achieved by the transformation of data to a highly indexed, compact format that is purpose-built to optimize the performance of multidimensional queries.
Due to OLAP’s sheer simplicity and speed, it continues to be an analysis technology of choice with an estimated global market share of R36 billion.
The value of coupling OLAP with reporting Organizations are now extending their analysis by incorporating reporting.
Indeed, reporting provides the detail users need to extend their understanding of the business issue at hand.
Today, there are sophisticated BI (business intelligence) solutions that offer a reporting infrastructure that delivers enterprise-wide quality reports against OLAP data sources. The result is broader consumption of business information to accelerate and improve decision-making across the organization.
These solutions, for example, can create highly formatted reports. Plus, as these reports have the ability to integrate multiple cubes (of analysis) it enables organisations to get all the information they need in one dashboard or report.
Therefore, by coupling OLAP with reporting, users can analyse trends and then get answers to business questions by way of managed reports. This in turn allows users to monitor changes in the business over time and understand what is causing them.
By integrating the power of multi-dimensional analysis with reporting, organizations gain a complete business picture.
Consolidating summarized corporate information from volumes of heterogeneous data and presenting this data to users in a meaningful business context, multi-dimensional analysis and reporting offer great potential for improving and coordinating decision-making across the extended enterprise.
By David McWilliam, managing director at Cognos SA, an IBM company
