BI for Dummies

Due to the idea of the blog is to discuss about Business Intelligence (BI), there is a little explanation maybe from the technology side that the business areas side about what is BI.

We could talk about BI for dummies.

BI is neither a product nor a system. It is an umbrella term that combines architectures, applications, and databases. It enables the real-time, interactive access, analysis, and manipulation of information, which provides the business community with easy access to business data. BI analyzes historical data—the data businesses generate through transactions or by other kinds of business activities—and helps businesses by analyzing the past and present business situations and performances. By giving this valuable insight, BI helps decision makers make more informed decisions and supplies end users with critical business information on their customers or partners, including information on behaviors and trends.

Businesses generate a sea of data. Every datum carries a small piece of the business’ story. This data is scattered everywhere, in disparate systems and in different departments. It is held captive in dead hard drives, and can even be situated in geographically different regions. However, it is in data, where the true nature of business—its trends, strengths, and weaknesses—lie. BI gathers all the related data to turn it into information and information that is analyzed properly can be used for decision making which can finally go into action.

In other words, BI transforms data into information, information into decisions, and decisions into action.