Nowadays, having the right kind of knowledge about business context is so important, but data is even more important.
It is crucial to be aware that it's not the quantity of information that counts, but the proper kind of information we are able to acquire and the reason why we want to get it.
That's why data is so important.
“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.” – Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web
Data is important because, without data, there would be no world:
- The world is built upon data, so it makes sense to learn how to use it so that you can benefit the world in many ways.
- That's why Business Intelligence has become crucial for any organization to carry out effective and insightful operations. Accessing information is no longer the problem as we are nowadays bombarded by it.
The question has become ‘what to do with this data?’ and ‘how to use it in the best profitable way?’. Business Intelligence is not the same as data analytics.
While data analytics is more focused on studying data in order to draw conclusions about the information it contains, Business Intelligence engages the decision-making based on that data.
What is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence refers to the set of practices which include technologies and applications working on the whole process starting from collection, integration, analysis, to the presentation of the business information.
The main purpose of Business Intelligence is to support decision making activities not only for businesses but also NGOs.
In a business intelligence context, the systems used by any type of organization are called data-driven Decision Support Systems. They are basically presented as the different processes on different levels of an organization. These systems can be human-powered or computerized or both combined to help entities make decisions about problems faced.
Did you know that Business intelligence existed already before technology ?
It was used to describe the way Sir Henry Furnese, a banker, was profiting from information by collecting and developing it in a way that makes it a pillar for his competition strategy.
At that time, it was a revolutionary act using data rather than assumption to establish a consistent business strategy.
Mr. Richard Miller Devens didn’t realize that he was facilitating for a revolutionary scientific approach, used many years later, which lies on experimental facts.
How does business intelligence work ?
Every organization must have objectives, goals and perspectives. To master their activities, these organizations need to track objectives performance, gather data, analyze it, and determine what are the steps to make to reach the goals.
Technically, raw data is collected from the organization’s activity, processed and then stored in data warehouses.
Once stored, data becomes accessible and analysis processes can be applied to answer business questions.
Traditional BI VS modern BI: Red pill and Blue pill ?
Based on the traditional business intelligence model, business intelligence tools used top-down approaches driven by the IT entities, which means the analytical aspects were answered only through static reports. To explain more, we can take the example of someone having a follow-up question about a received report and their request.
This means if someone is having a follow-up question about the report they received, their demand would go to the bottom of the reporting queue. Starting the process over again is a must.
However, modern business intelligence is more approachable and more interactive. Although IT entities are still the unique part of managing access to data, reporting becomes a mission which can be accomplished by multiple levels of users. Thanks to visualization software, users can answer their own questions.
Enterprises with different sizes are nowadays working on Artificial Intelligence adoption to improve the performance of the business processes and bring more customized user actions. How is Artificial Intelligence shaping the Future of Business Intelligence ?