Business Intelligence For Dummies 1st Edition

After receiving this book I began to read it immediately. If the has a terrible writing style I tend to lose interest very quickly. I have read the first four chapters and have yet to lose interest in this book. The first three chapters, as usual, are the foundation (basics) for the remainder of the book. These chapters might seem stale and one might be tempted to skip over them. I have found that, unlike other books, the first three chapters are filled with conceptual and practical information and situations that I have personally encountered. This is significant to me in that it shows the author has practical application experience or has really done their research. The author shows that they know what one goes through when trying to implement a BI solution.Although I have only read four chapters, I can assure you that I am a picky reader. If this author spent excessive time using large words in hopes of impressing the reader, I would be the first to scream for you not to buy this book. The author writes in a very relaxed and reader friendly tone. If you are looking to gain a good understanding of BI and the concepts of how to go about implementing your own solution, this is a great book (in my humble opinion).This is the first "dummies" series book I have ever bought and it is quite possible I will explore others due to this author.

A very good introduction to the world of BI. I was afraid when I was buying this book that I'd be a little dated (the paper version was published in 2008, I purchased the Kindle version). Except probably the chapter on the BI vendors and products, this book rather provides general advice and tips for BI project managers and business analysts so it wouldn't go out of date as quickly as some IT manuals.The format is very readable and not technical at all. The reason I didn't give it 5 stars was that the writing was a little lengthy at times; compacting the book by some 100 pages wouldn't hurt the readability much IMO. Although this might be because it is part of the Dummies series.Recommended.

I bought this book together with Data Warehouse for Dummies because I needed a fast track into the BI/DW-domain, and these two more then lived up to my expectations.I read DW for Dummies first, and was afraid that BI for Dummies would be like reading it all over again, but that wasn't the case.BI is a wide subject, or I might say concept, and the author points that out clearly in this book. Instead of focusing on a specific vendor (he points out many products though) he takes you on a journey from the initial decision making till the maintenance of the solution, and onto the next BI-project.It does take up quite a bit of project management, the key people you will need in a BI-project. If you are a "tinkerer" you will perhaps not get as much value out from this book, as if you work in a bigger organization. For me, that works for a major company it was the right fit.Not all of the book is interesting though, I can confess I mostly skimmed through the last 100 pages or so, because all "parts of tens" pretty much resembled what I had read in the DW for Dummies.This book is well worth its dollars.

There's some good information here, but it's buried in a lot of discursive material that detracts from the book. The best of the "for dummies" books are concentrated packages of easy to understand information. This is diffuse and it feels like the author was writing to a word count. Still, there's useful information here.

We bought this book for the non-techy people, like myself, in our office that need to be able to explain our company to prospects on a moment's notice. This book is exactly what I was looking for! Very well laid out and the humor used throughout the book keeps your attention and makes it fun to read - no falling asleep!

I am part of a sales team that relies heavily on BI/advanced analytics for finding new opportunities. This book was a perfect primer on BI and I've recommended to my non-analytic team members so they'll understand what us data nerds are talking about. I like this book because it explains the concepts, the jargon and the ways to use it. Plus, the authors have a sense of humor, which is always appreciated.

This is the worst book I've ever read. It's super verbose with "comedy," conversation, and dated information. It takes so long to get through a single section. At the same time, it's so skim on facts I feel like I learned nothing after a chapter. It's like a college book report intentionally made long.

this was probably relevant years ago but not any more, i should have returned it when i saw how old it was