Applications of Business Intelligence in e –Commerce Websites – A Theoretical Overview of Data Warehouse Schema Design & Usage

Abstract

In the last few years we have seen a tremendous shift in shopping patterns of the Indian customers. Customers are changing their shopping preference from brick and mortar companies to e-commerce companies. People of different age groups and various backgrounds are buying in the e commerce websites. Many brick and mortar companies are now modifying their business models to suit the new age internet economy. The e- commerce websites must measure their business periodically to dynamically modify the strategies and form ad- hoc strategies to suit the needs and wants of the various customers. These internet oriented businesses generate millions and millions of ‘data' based on the volume of business. Only when these businesses tap these data and analyse to generate useful patterns about the customers, partners, delivery etc., they can sustain in the market and run the business profitably. Business intelligence is the science of converting data in to actionable information and presenting it to the decision making authorities usually managers to make informed decisions. To this cause, in this paper a well known technique of data warehousing has been demonstrated using schema design to highlight the use of this technology to store data and later use it for taking informed decisions.