"BI helps connect disparate data sources"
By Pankaj Maru
Mumbai, Mar 10, 2008

Since MAIA Intelligence is in the field of developing and providing BI solutions to various companies, could you tell us how much is the potential of BI in terms of use and application in the current scenario?

BI has prevailed over the years. Earlier it was termed as Decision Support System (DSS), later as Management Information System (MIS), and then as Executive Information System (EIS). Finally now we know it as Business Intelligence (BI). In terms of adoption, typically, the technology was so complex and hard to use, its adoption ratios were very less and it was seen as an expert's choice.

But in recent years there's been a paradigm shift in the BI space altogether. New generation software companies have developed innovative tools with the current technology and processing power of IT and computer hardware infra structure. Today, software have been devised, wherein, time to market is very fast and the user experience is visually stunning.

We are seeing a democratization of BI with the market exploding as enterprises wake up to its benefits. With BI, a person is free from dependence on experts for getting various business reports, as the solution generates those reports on its own and helps the person to arrive at an informed decision.

Companies and enterprises come across large collection of data related to different fields and segments in the business. What role does BI play in classifying this large data collection?

Let us say there are volumes of data generated from the ERP, HRMS, CRMS, and other systems. Here, for instance, let us take applications first. A customer in financial broking services, where there are 11 lines of business applications - stocking broking services, depository services, portfolio management, insurance sale, etc. So there are these 11 lines of business but a single customer. Also, there are various back-office service applications aligned to these business lines, hence BI connects to these data warehouses and creates a single customer view in connection with those 11 businesses.

BI helps connecting these disparate data sources, creates those kinds of patterns and reports by which a business user can create opportunities or mitigate risks, it can be used for either of them. Basically, it happens as a self-serve reporting, rather than depending on others for reports that can take long time. This is like an operational BI, wherein, real-time reports are generated on businesses.

Are Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Business Intelligence (BI) two different entities or the same? How much has the concept of intelligence been accepted by people in terms of its usage in various applications and devices?

AI and BI are different entities. BI is typically for the commercial usage and used across commercial lines of business applications, which needs operational reporting and analysis on various segments. It targets commercial business enterprises, whereas AI is inexistence for more in terms of systems, robotics, and it's on a different field more on predictive and statistical side. AI is more on the research and development side.

In the last few years, new companies within the BI space have developed tools that have increased user adoption to a great extent. It's because the look and feel is very simple to use, there's a lot of process power and, time to market is very low and the visual interface is extremely appealing.

Today, information or data is the most underused asset in any organization. Information is like cash; its value diminishes as time goes by. Information is useful if it's available at the right time, but if it is offered after six months it has no value. So one needs to act upon the information on a real time basis and BI helps to unlock those kinds of values that ERPs capture across or any transaction application would capture.

Is there any scope in further development of XBRL?

XBRL is still in an evolving stage, since it first came into existence in 1999. We have seen a continuous development in taxonomy definition with new elements getting added into it. In the Indian context, I would say, "We have not even started yet; XBRL on Indian accounting standard still has not taken place." There have been few initiatives by stock exchanges and SEBI but again those have not made any significant progress as yet.

We have got few cases like RBI or some banks trying to look at XBRL as the next technology which can help across on the interactive data, cutting down the reconciliation part of it where exchange of financial data becomes very easy. It's a larger form of an EDI where data can be exchanged across in a seamless way. For e.g. Security Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken a huge leap in spearheading the initiatives in US, so something similar needs to happen in India.

Will XBRL be used in generating information other than the business sector? Is there a possibility in its work capabilities and strengths to aid in other sectors?

XBRL is a part of business reporting language. It can be adopted at various levels. For e.g., I have a manufacturing unit and have several general ledgers that I want to consolidate, So I can use it by defining general ledger taxonomy and publish the data and make it available to my secondary sales. Such data can be then used in form of interactive data.

A sector, like the healthcare sector, generates lots of data, which needs to be XBRL-enabled so that it can be exchanged with insurance companies. The applications are wide, and they can be used wherever there is an exchange of financial data.

Do you foresee more Indian companies joining the fray in developing business intelligence solutions? How is the market for intelligence solutions in India? Is it developing or is it still in the nascent phase?

We are the first Indian company to develop BI software indigenously. Usually these products are developed either in the US or Germany. In fact there's quite an irony, wherever we showcase these products to Indian CIOs, they would typically ask us, "Which company you represent? or which company are you a distributor of?" Basically, they can't believe that such a product can be developed within India.

The Indian market is a green field of opportunities; however it still is in the nascent stage. Now that the ERPs are getting stable and a lot of data is getting generated, people have started looking at BI and in fact, if you see a Gartner report of 2007, CIOs have stated that their main priority currently is BI.

What are your views on the future role of intelligence in IT, computers and telecommunications?

Let's talk about end-to-end, for instance take telecommunication, where we would be generating lot of billing and other data. Hence this is a very good area where BI can be applied to know what the churn out of customers is.

On the IT front, we will have to look analyze its applicability in various segments. For instance in BPOs, where lots of call data are generated, the manager may want to know the performance analysis of each of the persons handling the call center. He or she may also like to see which executive is performing best at what time, for what period, what is the efficiency ratio, etc.

One can also create indexes with various service level agreements..So effectively, if you look end to end, BI would be able to serve IT, the services, hardware, BPO and telecommunication segments.

What is India's contribution in the development of intelligent solutions? Is there enough potential here, for India to compete with other western countries in the intelligent solutions space?

When we started MAIA, we wanted to provide something to Indian companies that was affordable and could be deployed en masse. A company in US with just 50 employees can have a turnover of USD 5000 million. To have the same kind of turnover in India, one would need at least5000 people! That's the difference between us and them, But usually, if you see from the price points, what the MNCs or foreign tools would offer to Indian customers is on the same lines as what they would be charging in US or Germany or any developed country.