Proceedings

In the case study mentioned at tier one it is essential to determine who needs access
and to what information. If we refer to a company that sells IT equipment, the
information transparency between the sales and finance departments is essential. For
example when selling a laptop the invoice is done by a sales representative and should
be available in real time on the system for the finance department. Also the sales
department should be able to see the stock on the system and request additional items
if necessary. On the other hand, the finance department must inform the sales
representative if there are any issues with the customers in terms of payments,
supplementary costs or VAT/ import regulation changes. The system consolidates all
the information inserted by the sales representatives at the end of the week in order to
create a report for the finance department. The layer sits between people and systems,
and manages the process across those participants, thus prioritizes the work, but also
gives visibility and control.
1.4 Tier III: Calculating the costs
Figure 2. Layer for Control and Visibility
Several factors affect the cost of implementing a Business Intelligence system, such as
the amount of information gathered and analysed and the frequency needed to refresh
the information. In addition, analysis can become expensive, and the time spent
modelling can be length. Cost decisions will influence the system design - for
example the choice of servers, storage and software.
After determining the options and the cost of installing or updating an enterprise
Business Intelligence system, it is needed to decide what kind of system to build. Can
the current system deliver sufficient results by upgrading some of the components?
Will partial upgrades be feasible in the future? Is the best in the industry components
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