What happens when SOA meets BI?

They call it BI 2.0.  That's a little catch-phrase-y for more.  We've had plenty of 2.0s in the past few years, and not all of them have been good.  But I think this 2.0 will be worth taking notice. 

I mean a new BI solution that I spoke with Charles Nicolls about today.  Nicolls is the founder of SeeWhy Software, Ltd.  And SeeWhy software is an interesting technology, to say the least. 

Understand, I approach conversations with companies that claim to have the next big thing in BI from a very skeptical position.  Every company thinks they have the best software on the market, and ordinarily it's not true.  But I have to tell you, If SeeWhy is everything that Nicolls claims it is, this could most definitely signal a new approach to business intelligence.

The SeeWhy software is what Nicolls terms 'real-time' BI, but it's different  from any real-time BI software that I've come across yet.  That's because SeeWhy actually uses both real-time and historical data to give you a full, intelligent picture of the issue that you're examining. And here's the really interesting par: SeeWhy examines every transaction BEFORE anything is stored in any kind of data warehouse. 

Here's how it works: Each 'customer' has their own profile.  Then every transaction that you're monitoring is examined by the SeeWhy software.  It's analyzed on the spot both in real-time and in comparison to historical data.  The results are then keyed to trigger events, much like any other BI software would be.  What makes this program special is that it's not a case of collecting data and later analyzing it.  This software collects and analyzes the data all at the same time. 

As Nicols pointed out to me (and I've said many times before) business intelligence is not about just the data that's collection.  It's about the interpretation of that data and how it is used to create actionable information.  If SeeWhy works they way it's been explained to me, then it leads you very quickly to a realistic interprestation of your data, based on a predefined business problem, and then creates and disseminates actionable information.  What's more, depending on what needs to be done, the software can actually initiate the action that needs to take place.

One company that's already using the SeeWhy software is Guinness.  Yes, the same, Irish Guinness that creates the beer.  Accoring to Nicolls, more than 10 million glasses of Guinness are drunk each day; about half of those are in the US.  To make that possible, Guinness ships massive amounts of beer to the US every day.  But keeping up with those shipments and ensuring they arrive at the correct vendors in the US is a major undertaking.

So, Guinness decided to use SeeWhy software to collect information and improve the shipping process.  SeeWhy monitors every step of the shipping process from the time the beer leaves the brewery to the time it lands on the vendor's shelves.  And the software has made it possible for Guinness to improve their on-time shipments by more than 60 percent. 

That's a pretty sizable improvement.  And that's the promise of BI software applications that can combine real-time data with historical data to create an action or actionable data.  It's what I've long been saying is needed to reach that nirvana we all call SOA.  But that's a different soapbox for a different post.

If you want to learn more about SeeWhy Software and how Nicolls views business intelligence, download the e-book.  It's an informative e-mail, and it's only about 45 pages, so you should be able to get through it pretty quickly.  If nothing else, you'll learn a little about the next step in true business intelligence.