The concept of data analysis, BI or Business Intelligence, refers to the process of collecting, organizing, analyzing, sharing, and monitoring information that supports business management.
BI consists of a series of processes and methods that help transform raw data into meaningful and useful information for decision-making.
If you want to understand more about the 4.0 era and learn how Business Intelligence can help you in making decisions and looking for new opportunities, keep reading this post that we prepared especially for you:
Data analysis or information management
Before moving on to the concept of BI or Business Intelligence, we must understand the difference between data and information.
We can say that data is the raw material of information. It is a term referring to events, transactions, and the like that, although “stored”, have not undergone the necessary processing to become information.
Information, on the other hand, consists of data that has already been processed in such a way that it makes sense and can be understood by its recipient.
Within this context, another concept, Big Data, plays a fundamental role, as it is responsible for storing, organizing, and making available large volumes of data, thus facilitating access to them and, consequently, enabling their processing for the acquisition of information.
Big Data and Business Intelligence
Broadly speaking, Big Data is a concept that, for decades, has been concerned with creating and storing accurate data, using and improving IT applications for this purpose.
BI, on the other hand, aims to facilitate the interpretation of a large volume of data. To do this, it organizes information so that managers receive it in an understandable way. In other words, it analyzes information for decision-making.
Big Data and BI are complementary and coexist. The first works in a systemic and continuous way, while the other works with a specific goal in mind.
Decision making based on data analysis
Decision-making is inevitably contingent on the availability of information on the issue at hand.
For decision-making to be effective and fast, information must be relevant, relevant, and reliable, and it must be available to the right people at the right time.
That is why it is essential to have programs and ways to collect data and convert it into information.
Thanks to Business Intelligence, companies acquire systems capable of transforming the large volumes of data they acquire from different sources, processing them, and making them available to be presented in ways that make sense for decision making.
Business Intelligence and the Textile Industry
In the fashion industry, or in the textile industry, BI also facilitates access to relevant information for decision making.
Traditionally, a garment factory is made up of several members, from the designer(s), the pattern maker, the cutter, the seamstresses, the manager, the directors, the purchasing staff, the sales staff, the administrative staff. etc.
Each of these employees acquires data in the performance of their function, which will later be transformed into information. At the same time, each of them, at some point, will require information to make some kind of decision during their working day.
However, in a predominantly manual preparation, this data and information belong to each of them, and when faced with the need to make some kind of decision.
It would be necessary in this case to ask individually for the necessary information, and they will probably need to resort to their manual notes, many of them sometimes shared on paper, with erasures and handwritten corrections, as in the case of the technical datasheet.
Technical Sheet as a Data analysis sample:
The technical sheet is the clearest example of relevant information, as it is a document used by various members of the garment-making process, incorporating information not only about the garment, its measurements, model, etc, but also about the fabric, prices, and requirements.
Accessing information in this way, requiring the assistance of different members, takes time, delaying the entire process, the search for information, its organization, and, above all, its tabulation, which is sometimes essential to define graphs and understand trends.
Through specific management software for the textile industry, such as Fashion PLM Audaces ISA, each member of the organization has access to both the technical file and all information related to each product developed.
Access to information is instantaneous, and only a few filters are needed to get the information relevant and organized.
Thanks to this software, all employees participate in loading data and information into the system, which is kept within reach of everyone, in an organized and clear way.
And becomes a fundamental element both for the control of the company’s functioning, as well as a source of up-to-date information for effective decision making.
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