Business Intelligence u Funkciji Upravljanja Nabavnim Lancem

A company business environment in the market and characteristics of modern business determine global processes and internationalisation of all business activities. Complexity of facts, indicated also by recent researches, means the modernization of business policies in all business fields. Competition, changes in technology and their intensity characterize the existing business environment. Developments in this field impose profound changes that contribute to increased dynamics in all activities undertaken by an economic operator within its business environment. Being permanently developed information technology plays an important role to that effect, especially during the last decade. It opens new possibilities in business application, requiring at the same time considerable and radical changes in business plans taking into consideration the importance of information, its amount, the speed it flows at, as well as its interconnection and causes. Within modern business making, timely and precise information accompanied with the knowledge gained therefrom, becomes, together with the capital and workforce, a dominant business resource but also a platform for a company's survival. The problem that the management faces daily is that the company with large databases frequently misses sufficient usable information and the knowledge based on it, that is essential for adequate decision-making. In contrast to the traditional approach to the value chain model that treats the information as a supporting element, business intelligence is based on the assumption that the information is a resource that creates a new, added value. Some companies are not familiar with the structure of their logistics costs yet, so they do not efficiently manage the information. The result is that executives do not get precise information available in real time and in real location. Business intelligence is a process based on the usage of the information and the resulting facts learned from it, that can be applied for an efficient masurement, supervision, prediction and management of that chain. Successful application of such an approach contributes to considerable reduction of costs, increase in the performance of the whole supply chain, more efficient utilization of working capital, proper selection of suppliers, optimisation of input and output logistics, realization of active stock policy, and also contributes to the growth, development and improvement of the business as a whole. Business intelligence enables the evolution and consolidation of a supply process, from the business support to a transparent and efficient process, in an effort to maintain the market competitiveness of a company.