Abstract:
An engine, system and method for providing cloud-based business intelligence data, responsively to received company information, including a local front end comprising a graphical user interface capable of locally querying a user for an electronic location of the received company information, and ones of the business intelligence data to be displayed on the graphical user interface upon upload of the received company information from the electronic location, and further including an at least partially remote back end, comprising an accessing engine capable of accessing the electronic location for uploading to the cloud of only ones of the received company information indicative of the ones of the business data intelligence to be displayed, and a charging engine for charging an account of a user of the front end $1 per the ones of the business intelligence data to be displayed.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 
       [0001]    This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/538,994, filed Sep. 26, 2011, entitled Engine, System and Method for Providing Cloud-Based Business Intelligence, and to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/493,647, filed Jun. 6, 2011, entitled Engine, System and Method of Providing Cloud-Based Business Valuation and Associated Services, the entireties of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0003]    The present invention relates to aspects associated with a business, and, more particularly, to an engine, system and method for providing cloud-based business intelligence. 
         [0004]    2. Background of the Invention 
         [0005]    Business intelligence (“BI”), as used herein, includes computer-based techniques used in identifying, obtaining, extracting, and/or analyzing business data, for a business or for portions of a business. By way of non-limiting example, BI may include sales revenue by product or department, or by generation costs or net income. BI computing may provide historical, current or predictive views of aspects of a subject business. As such, BI computing may include any methodology, process, architecture, or technology that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information for the business, and that may thus be used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making. 
         [0006]    As such, BI computing may support improved business decisions. By comparison, while BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal data, competitive intelligence (“CI”) gathers, analyzes and disseminates information focused on competitors. Nevertheless, broadly understood BI typically includes, as a subset thereof, Cl. 
         [0007]    BI may also perform or make use of data integration, data quality, data warehousing, master data management, text and content analytics, and similar information management functions to obtain or prepare data. Therefore, “data preparation” and “data usage” may be deemed separate but linked segments of a BI architecture. For example, data usage may include reporting, analytics and dashboards, while data preparation may include data conversion and/or warehousing for use in such reporting, analytics and dashboards. 
         [0008]    As used herein, “analytics” or “business analytics” may focus on developing new strategies and understanding of business performance based on the data indicating the metrics of BI. As used herein, “dashboard,” “interface,” “graphical user interface” (“GUI”) and like terms may indicate an interactive display to a user, such as on a display screen of a computing device, that provides the user with information in an organized and understandable manner. 
         [0009]    As such, a first generation of BI computing harnessed information via kluge information extraction and proprietary reporting, which necessitated the vast data stores and data warehouses that held data in large databases. In such initial stage BI computing, executives could not access the large volume of cross-enterprise information in a consumable format that would allow for actionable decisions absent detailed knowledge of silo-reporting mechanisms, if such mechanisms were even available. This results in a vast data store of information that is not consumable by, insightful for, or actionable to the most important decision makers in a given company. 
         [0010]    A second generation of BI computing leverages the traditional enterprise technology environment by creating virtual data warehouses stored via Enterprise Information Integration (“EII”) technologies that allow for providing of the resulting data in an easier-to-use dashboard technology with reporting. However, such dashboard technologies provide improved access to only the same kluge information that first generation BI computing was built upon. As such, even these second generation BI computing systems bind a company to a large supplier of BI systems, wherein the company&#39;s use of the supplied system is invariably bogged down by the weight of the company&#39;s own voluminous data generated to the BI system. 
         [0011]    Thus, billions of dollars have been spent on traditional BI solutions, but BI in the available art still suffers from three fundamental problems: it is a data choke point; it is a cost center, and it does little to simplify or enhance the user experience. Therefore, the need exists for an engine, system and method of using data for BI that alleviates BI as a data choke point, eliminates BI as a cost center, and simplifies and enhances the user&#39;s experience with BI. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0012]    The present invention includes an engine, system and method for providing cloud-based business intelligence data, responsively to received company information. The engine, system and method may include a local front end comprising a graphical user interface capable of locally querying a user for an electronic location of the received company information, and ones of the business intelligence data to be displayed on the graphical user interface upon upload of the received company information from the electronic location. The apparatus, system and method may further include an at least partially remote back end, comprising an accessing engine capable of accessing the electronic location for uploading to the cloud of only ones of the received company information indicative of the ones of the business data intelligence to be displayed, and a charging engine for charging an account of a user of the front end $1 per the ones of the business intelligence data to be displayed. 
         [0013]    Thus, the present invention provides an engine, system and method of using data for BI that alleviates BI as a data choke point, eliminates BI as a cost center, and simplifies and enhances the user&#39;s experience with BI. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as discussed hereinthroughout. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0014]    The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosed embodiments. In the drawings, like numerals represent like elements, and: 
           [0015]      FIG. 1  illustrates an aspect of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0016]      FIG. 2  illustrates an aspect of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0017]      FIG. 3  illustrates an aspect of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; and 
           [0018]      FIG. 4  illustrates an aspect of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0019]    Computer-implemented platforms, engines, systems and methods of use are disclosed that provide networked access to a plurality of types of digital content, including but not limited to video, audio, data, metadata, hyperlinks, interactive and document content, and that track, deliver manipulate, transform and report the accessed content. Described embodiments of these platforms, engines, systems and methods are intended to be exemplary and not limiting. As such, it is contemplated that the herein described systems and methods can be adapted to provide many types of cloud-based data aggregation, reporting, and the like, and can be extended to provide enhancements and/or additions to the exemplary platforms, engines, systems and methods described. The invention is thus intended to include all such extensions. Reference will now be made in detail to various exemplary and illustrative embodiments of the present invention. 
         [0020]    The present invention changes BI from a cost center to a revenue center. More particularly, the present invention makes use of data that is already available to the enterprise, and helps the executives of the enterprise simplistically make use of only the data they need to make money from the existing investments of the enterprise in data collection. 
         [0021]    Moreover, the present invention alleviates the silo-ization of BI, and as such eliminates BI as a data choke point in the enterprise. More particularly, the data for BI in the available art resides in independent silos, such as on the premises, in the cloud, in spreadsheets on a network, and in internal untargeted reports. Such data is all but impossible to search, and the non-real-time nature of the data often makes the data inaccurate or irrelevant even if it can be located. Likewise, the underlying data may be manipulated or modified for a report such that, even if the desired data is located, it may be so manipulated as to have become useless or unrecognizable. The present invention makes the data from such silos available, in real time as it is accumulated, in a reporting manner customized to the desires of the receiving user. 
         [0022]    The apparatus, system and method of the present invention provide for the focused accumulation and consumption of Business Intelligence (“BI”) data. The accumulation and consumption of such BI data may avail a company of real and usable intelligence for and from CXO&#39;s across the enterprise, across devices, and across systems. 
         [0023]    The present invention employs mobile and cloud based technology to enable the un-binding of the enterprise. Thereby, any executive/CXO of the enterprise may access only the data needed to make decisions in real-time, and may use existing dashboard technologies to provide that data as that executive sees fit. Further, because only the data needed for that executive may be prepared and used, the enterprise may pay for only the data consumed, which may be as little as, for example, 1/100 of the cost to the enterprise of a traditional BI system with dashboard reporting. More particularly, the dashboard of the present invention is not a canned dashboard report drawing, from voluminous data, the report data selected by the user of the dashboard. Rather, the instant dashboard provides a real time status, or score, drawn from nimble, real time data drawn only from data of interest to that user. 
         [0024]    More particularly, and as illustrated in the flow diagram of the method  300  of  FIG. 1  and the system block diagram of the system  400  of  FIG. 2 , a user/executive may sign up to a Software as a Service (SaaS), enterprise intelligence offering at step  302 . For example, a user may enter enterprise-related information, grant access to enterprise information or locations, develop a secure user profile or password, and the like. Further, the user&#39;s position within the enterprise may indicate, such as using security protocols, what data may be accessible to the particular user. 
         [0025]    At step  304 , the user may select the BI to be tracked by that user. By way of non-limiting example, the user may be provided with a search for information, by topic, in the systems to which access was granted, a tree-diagram of information, such as with html or xml links to the information, and/or with a series of pull-down menus from which may be selected Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Risk Indicators (KRIs). Yet more particularly, a pull down list may allow for selection of a preferred BI “pack” dedicated to an executive at the user&#39;s position entered in step  302 , such as, for example, wherein a user receives a recommendation for a CEO pack; a CFO pack; a VP of Sales pack; a VP of Marketing pack; a CIO pack; a General Counsel Pack; or a VP of Technology pack. 
         [0026]    By way of non-limiting example, available KRI&#39;s and KPI&#39;s may include Sales, Sales Growth, Gross Margin, Gross Margin By Product, Cost of Sales, Cost of Lead, Net Income, Ebitda, SG&amp;A, Ebit, Pre Tax Earnings, Forecast Value, Pipeline Value, Customer Concentration, Total Number of Leads, Time to Close Ratio, Employee Count, System Uptime, System failures, Web Traffic, Unique Visitors, Conversion Cost, Business Value, and/or Business Score, Credit Rating, or the like. Needless to say, other KPI&#39;s or KRI&#39;s may also be made available through the use of the present invention. 
         [0027]    At step  306 , the user may select the exact location of the data for which the BI will be generated. For example, the user authorization at step  302  may allow for a search for data at networked locations, cookied or historical web locations, locations indicated by desktop or mobile apps, or the like. Additionally and alternatively, the user may be provided with a tree menu, a search menu, a drop-down menu, or the like, from which the location of the data of interest may be received. For example, the user may indicate that the data of interest is stored at html-linked or ftp-linked remote or local locations, or more particularly resides at Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Workplace servers or file directories, Departmental storage (i.e., the accounting department server, the human resources server, etc.), at or via Google, at or via Facebook, at SAP or a similar remote repository, or the like. 
         [0028]    The system may query the user, at step  308 , for the user to provide a mapping or domain IP request for the data to be uploaded to perform the requested BI for that individual user. Further, at step  308 , the user may indicate the manner in which such data is to be uploaded to provide the BI in the desired fashion on the cloud-based dashboard of the present invention, as detailed further with respect to step  312 . Of course, if a user declines to make the data available, the user may be referred to a telephonic help line or an online chat window, such as within a predetermined time such as within 30 minutes of sign-up, to gain the user&#39;s, to gain the user&#39;s permission for the necessary data upload and data conversion. 
         [0029]    At step  310 , the user may be queried as to goals for the business. Such goals may include thresholds for expenditures, sales, revenue, growth, number of employees, and the like. Similarly, such goals may include asset-building tasks, such as research and development, intellectual property protections, and the like. Further, such goals may include indications of competitors. 
         [0030]    A sample or recommended dashboard, such as in light of the selected CXO pack or the data to be accessed, may display at step  312 . Additionally and alternatively, the user may be asked to indicate features of a desired dashboard at step  312 . Further, the user may be queried as to how the user will typically access the user&#39;s dashboard, such as from what device or using what operating system. Options may include, by way of non-limiting example, dashboard presentation to the cloud, to a smartphone or similar mobile device (and if so what OS the app will be accessed on), or both. Needless to say, the user may be enabled to access the dashboard and its BI presentation anywhere from any device, irrespective of the option selected at step  312 . 
         [0031]    Finally, the user may be asked to pay for the service of the present invention at step  314 . The user may be asked to approve a recurring charge, such as to a Paypal or credit card or bank account, and/or may be given an option to cancel at any time or after a certain time (such as wherein a one year contract, or the like, is required, and/or may be asked to pay in advance for a certain term of service, such as 1 year. Additionally, in a particularly preferred embodiment, the user may be charged a certain rate per metric of BI selected at step  304 , such as per week or per month. By way of non-limiting example, the user may select, at step  314 , to be charged $1.00 USD per metric, per month, such as for at least one month or for at least one year, for the metrics of interest selected by the user at step  304 . 
         [0032]    Thereby, the present invention may allow for monitoring and measuring BI in the form of KPI and/or KRI scores provided responsive to a 7 step, by way of non-limiting example, cloud-based BI system that does Rapid Data Mapping (RDP) for only that data, or, in alternative embodiments, for at least that data, of interest to that user. Additionally, for example, such a BI service may be provided, according to the present invention, using a $1 per metric, per month SaaS BI system, wherein a user enters the data she wishes to track, and that data is mapped to or from other SaaS or cloud based services or data applications the enterprise is running to the dashboard of the instant invention. 
         [0033]      FIG. 2  illustrates, with greater particularity, an exemplary frontend  401  and backend  402  to enable system  400  to provide method  300 . More particularly, the backend  402  communicates, at the direction of the user, with any existing system  412 , such as via an accessing engine comprised of computing code, to obtain solely the data of interest to the user at the cost accepted by the user as indicated by a charging engine comprised of computing code associated with the backend  402 . Such data of interest may be resident at third party system  412   a , customer relationship management system  412   b , enterprise resource planning system  412   c , human resources system  412   d , and/or financial system  412   e , and/or such data may be resident at data repository  414  or reporting system  416 . 
         [0034]    This data may be delivered in real-time, as BI, to the user at frontend  401 . Frontend  401  may comprise a dashboard, such as in a browser-based view or in an app, such as to any of a variety of devices, such as a laptop, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry or Android phone or tablet. Thereby, back end  401  may scale up for large numbers of users of front ends  401 . 
         [0035]    Thereby, back end  402  may access any data source  412   414 ,  416 , such as, but not limited to, relational databases (such as JDBC), OLAP, Excel, hosted CRMs such as SalesForce.com, Business Objects, XML, SOAP, Java beans (POJO), flat files, OLAP cubes, SAP, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel CRM, and/or other real-time and near-real-time systems. Bandwidth savings may result in the event back end  402  access only the data from those data sources  412 ,  414 ,  416  indicated as of interest to the user of front end  401 . Nevertheless, front end  401  may be provided, by virtue of back end  402 , with unlimited drill downs, in part because of the myriad data available to back end  402 , even if such data is not initially directed for upload to frontend dashboard  401 —that is, the user may have drill down available even for data not included in a selected data pack, such as for a per-use or enterprise-level fee, or for free. Further, back end  402  may expose, upon request from front end  401 , the origination point for any data used to generate BI. 
         [0036]    More particularly, a dashboard in accordance with front end  401  may include: Flash-based user interactivity; charts and custom geographic map charting; drag and drop functionality; view and sub-window copy and re-use; collaboration between dashboard users, either within department or across departments, such as including view sharing and/or a chat feature; drilldown; analytics and real-time monitoring and customized real time “scoring”; interactive and ad-hoc reports, with drill down, on data of interest to the specific user; data security. Likewise, front end  401  may deliver, at user request, alerts for exceptions (standard or user-indicated) or triggers of business-rules, by way of non-limiting example. 
         [0037]    More particularly, front end  401  may allow for development of a user-based or enterprise-based scoring system. Occurrences (such as KPI or KRI) affecting scores, such as at a predetermined level, may cause alerts, score-based emails, or the like, to execute to front ends  401 , such as enterprise-wide or only within the department of interest for the KPI or KRI. Correspondingly, collaboration between front ends  401  may be enabled at all times, and/or may be enabled between departments of interest upon a trigger as referenced above. 
         [0038]      FIG. 3  depicts an exemplary computing system  100  for use in accordance with herein described system and method. Computing system  100  is capable of executing software, such as an operating system (OS) and a variety of computing applications  190 . The operation of exemplary computing system  100  is controlled primarily by computer readable instructions, such as instructions stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as hard disk drive (HDD)  115 , optical disk (not shown) such as a CD or DVD, solid state drive (not shown) such as a USB “thumb drive,” or the like. Such instructions may be executed within central processing unit (CPU)  110  to cause computing system  100  to perform operations. In many known computer servers, workstations, personal computers, and the like, CPU  110  is implemented in an integrated circuit called a processor. 
         [0039]    It is appreciated that, although exemplary computing system  100  is shown to comprise a single CPU  110 , such description is merely illustrative as computing system  100  may comprise a plurality of CPUs  110 . Additionally, computing system  100  may exploit the resources of remote CPUs (not shown), for example, through communications network  170  or some other data communications means. 
         [0040]    In operation, CPU  110  fetches, decodes, and executes instructions from a computer readable storage medium such as HDD  115 . Such instructions can be included in software such as an operating system (OS), executable programs and applications (also referred to as “apps”), and the like. Information, such as computer instructions and other computer readable data, is transferred between components of computing system  100  via the system&#39;s main data-transfer path. The main data-transfer path may use a system bus architecture  105 , although other computer architectures (not shown) can be used, such as architectures using serializers and deserializers and crossbar switches to communicate data between devices over serial communication paths. System bus  105  can include data lines for sending data, address lines for sending addresses, and control lines for sending interrupts and for operating the system bus. Some busses provide bus arbitration that regulates access to the bus by extension cards, controllers, and CPU  110 . 
         [0041]    Memory devices coupled to system bus  105  can include random access memory (RAM)  125  and read only memory (ROM)  130 . Such memories include circuitry that allows information to be stored and retrieved. ROMs  130  generally contain stored data that cannot be modified. Data stored in RAM  125  can be read or changed by CPU  110  or other hardware devices. Access to RAM  125  and/or ROM  130  may be controlled by memory controller  120 . Memory controller  120  may provide an address translation function that translates virtual addresses into physical addresses as instructions are executed. Memory controller  120  may also provide a memory protection function that isolates processes within the system and isolates system processes from user processes. Thus, a program running in user mode can normally access only memory mapped by its own process virtual address space; it cannot access memory within another process&#39; virtual address space unless memory sharing between the processes has been set up. 
         [0042]    In addition, computing system  100  may contain peripheral controller  135  responsible for communicating instructions using a peripheral bus from CPU  110  to peripherals, such as printer  140 , keyboard  145 , and mouse  150 . An example of a peripheral bus is the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. 
         [0043]    Display  160 , which is controlled by display controller  155 , can be used to display visual output and/or presentation generated by or at the request of computing system  100 . Such visual output may include text, graphics, animated graphics, and/or video, for example. Display  160  may be implemented with a CRT-based video display, an LCD-based display, gas plasma-based display, touch-panel display, or the like. Display controller  155  includes electronic components required to generate a video signal that is sent to display  160 . 
         [0044]    Further, computing system  100  may contain network adapter  165  which may be used to couple computing system  100  to an external communication network  170 , which may include or provide access to the Internet Protocol (“IP”) communications. Communications network  170  may provide user access for computing system  100  with means of communicating and transferring software and information electronically. Additionally, communications network  170  may provide for distributed processing, which involves several computers and the sharing of workloads or cooperative efforts in performing a task. It is appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing communications links between computing system  100  and remote users may be used. 
         [0045]    It is appreciated that exemplary computing system  100  is merely illustrative of a computing environment in which the herein described systems and methods may operate and does not limit the implementation of the herein described systems and methods in computing environments having differing components and configurations, as the inventive concepts described herein may be implemented in various computing environments using various components and configurations. 
         [0046]    As shown in  FIG. 4 , computing system  100  can be deployed in networked computing environment  200 . In general, the above description for computing system  100  applies to server, client, and peer computers deployed in a networked environment, for example, server  205 , laptop computer  210 , and desktop computer  230 .  FIG. 4  illustrates an exemplary illustrative networked computing environment  200 , with a server in communication with client computing and/or communicating devices via a communications network, in which the herein described apparatus and methods may be employed. 
         [0047]    As further shown in  FIG. 4 , server  205  may be interconnected via a communications network  240  (which may include any of, or any combination of, a fixed-wire or wireless LAN, WAN, intranet, extranet, peer-to-peer network, virtual private network, the Internet, or other communications network such as POTS, ISDN, VoIP, PSTN, etc.) with a number of client computing/communication devices such as laptop computer  210 , wireless mobile telephone  215 , wired telephone  220 , personal digital assistant  225 , user desktop computer  230 , and/or other communication enabled devices (not shown). Server  205  can comprise dedicated servers operable to process and communicate data such as digital content  250  to and from client devices  210 ,  215 ,  220 ,  225 ,  230 , etc. using any of a number of known protocols, such as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), file transfer protocol (FTP), simple object access protocol (SOAP), wireless application protocol (WAP), or the like. Additionally, networked computing environment  200  can utilize various data security protocols such as secured socket layer (SSL), pretty good privacy (PGP), virtual private network (VPN) security, or the like. Each client device  210 ,  215 ,  220 ,  225 ,  230 , etc. can be equipped with an operating system operable to support one or more computing and/or communication applications, such as a web browser (not shown), email (not shown), or the like, to interact with server  205 . 
         [0048]    Those of skill in the art will appreciate that the herein described systems and methods may be subject to various modifications and alternative constructions. There is no intention to limit the scope of the invention to the specific constructions described herein. Rather, the herein described systems and methods are intended to cover all modifications, alternative constructions, and equivalents falling within the scope and spirit of the invention and its equivalents.