Database Reference
In-Depth Information
STRATegIC, TACTICAl, AnD
oPeRATIonAl VIewS
Strategic, tactical, and operational views have been around since the early days
of military action. They reflect a real need for different levels of an organization
to have a different type of view of the data flowing within that organization.
In any intelligence application—from the military uses in which the techniques
evolved to the business intelligence (BI) applications you are more likely to
be familiar with—the reason for having a view of data is to make a decision
and/or take an action. The key difference among strategic, tactical, and opera-
tional views is the level of detail required in the view and the magnitude or
importance of the decision being made.
In the retail world, an example strategic decision is the decision to open a
new store. A decision like this is typically collaborative, with many people
contributing to making the decision. A market research firm may be engaged
to discover and compare the demographics of the possible areas in which the
store could open; the Finance Department evaluates the cost of doing business
in those areas and does profitability projections; and product managers supply
their knowledge of what products would work well in each store. All of these
data are collated and discussed. It takes some time, and—most likely—many
meetings to make a decision to open a new store, but an organization does
not usually have to make very many strategic decisions.
The other aspect of strategic views of data is monitoring. While the new store
project is being evaluated, the CEO and other executives need to know, at a
glance, that the business is still performing optimally, or at least adequately.
The executives need to know which of the existing regions, and which stores
within those regions, are doing poorly so that an intervention can occur imme-
diately. The strategic view is at an aggregated level, and it offers the ability to
drill into more details. See Figure 2-7 for an example.
An operational view, such as what's shown in Figure 2-8 on the other hand,
is at a detailed level. For example, in the same retail organization, a credit
controller at a store may be considering a request from a customer to get a
credit extension for a specific purchase, and will run a report showing the
customer's payment history and credit rating. The presentation style of this
type of detailed data is typically very different from the high level view used
