Nextanalytics can perform OLAP slice and dice operations to isolate data.  To do this, it takes advantage of the easy way in which it can create crosstabs from SQL data.

Start with a SQL query to get the data (as shown below).

Nextanalytics creates a crosstab by swapping the Product Line to the columns. (for more info on why this is cool, click here)

Nextanalytics can also easily summarize data to get subtotals and counts (as shown below).  And we can use Nextanalytics Alert to color code the results (the lighter the blue, the higher the value).

After preparing this crosstab, we now go back to the original result set from the query (no need to re-issue the query!) and repeat the same steps on Business Type.

We now have two crosstabs.  Using Nextanalytics, it is easy to perform math operations, comparisons, normalizations and then filter each crosstab independently.

Then, Nextanalytics allows you to intersect the two crosstabs where you have the choice to keep only the rows in both crosstabs!

This powerful slice and dice capability is actually superior to a cube based equivalent because of the ability to filter the crosstabs using independent business rules.