Real-time+Business+Intelligence

=Continental Airlines Case Study / Real-Time BI= Thursday, April 24

**Topic overview:**
As organizations climb the BI learning curve they often want to make the jump from analyzing historical data to supporting 'real-time' analyses and decision-making. Unfortunately, making such a jump requires overcoming many organizational and technical challenges. In this class we will explore Continental Airlines real-time BI implementation effort to better understand the challenges, tools, and techniques available to implement a real-time BI program in a large, complex organization.

**Preparation for class:**
Please complete the following reading prior to class on 1/19. [| Continental Airlines Case Study (pdf)]
 * [ALWWH] Ron Anderson-Lehman, Hugh J. Watson, Barbara H. Wixom, Jeffrey A. Hoffer, "Continental Airlines Takes Off with Real-time Business Intelligence", http://www.teradata.com/t/pdf.aspx?a=134006&b=133909

Be prepared to answer and discuss the following case questions in class. You do not need to submit your answers. The questions are intended to stimulate your thinking on the topic and serve as a starting point for in-class discussions.
 * 1) What were the key business drivers that led the Continental management team to invest in such an ambitious real-time BI project?
 * 2) What were some of the key tactical steps that the Continental BI team used to insure that their project was aligned with and supporting overall corporate strategy? Why do you believe that they did (or did not) do an effective job at maintaining this alignment?
 * 3) How important was the real-time aspect of the BI initiative to the program's overall success? Would their overall results have been substantially different if the team had pursued a more traditional batch-oriented, infrequently updated, BI program rather than the 'right-time' approach that they decided to go with? Can you describe specific examples to support your answer?
 * 4) What lessons should BI organizations in other companies should take from the Continental case regarding measuring ROI on a large BI project?
 * 5) How specific are the analytics discussed to the airline industry? Can you identify a few of the analytics discussed in the case study that might be effectively applied by companies in your industry?

As a final preparation for the class, think through how you could effectively apply 'Real-Time BI' within an an organization with which you are familiar. Come to class prepared to discuss your proposed application and what the organization would likely need to do to implement it effectively.

**Supplementary resources:**
In addition to the written case study, a 17 minute podcast with Ann Marie Reynolds, Continental Airline's Enterprise Data Warehouse Director is available at the link below. I encourage you to listen to the podcast for additional case background.
 * [| http://www.teradata.com/t/page/159460/index.html]

The following report on 'Real Time BI' from The Data Warehousing Institute provides an overview of the topic:
 * http://download.101com.com/tdwi/research_report/2003_RealTime_Report.pdf