Business Intelligence

The greater than ever competition and growing cost pressures require companies to make the best decisions possible. A company with employees who make correct and timely decisions wins in the marketplace. But how do you ensure that your employees make the best decisions they can? This is where Business Intelligence comes into play.

What’s business intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) is a category of technologies and an approach to management. The technologies convert data into timely information. They also bring the information to every employee in a format they can use and on a device they have. At the same time, the business intelligence management philosophy promotes a fact-based, rational approach to making decisions.

Converting data into information
In today’s world, companies are able to gather more data about their customers, products, sales channels, operations and suppliers than they can effectively analyze. The effective business intelligence solutions access large volumes of data and turn it into useful information to which decision makers can easily relate. Business intelligence solutions at the enterprise level report on company’s most important metrics needed to run the business, also called key performance indicators (KPIs).

Fact-based approach to management
Managers and knowledge workers make decisions by considering their experiences, understanding of the business, company’s objectives, and information. In companies which adopt a business intelligence philosophy, the decision makers seek to:

• obtain objective quantitative facts about their business,
• use organized methodologies to analyze the facts,
• apply models that explain the cause and effect relationships,
• take alternate approaches and monitor feedback on results, and
• acknowledge that people are not always rational.

As a result, they make well-grounded decisions followed by timely actions. Decisions, which have a clear purpose and are backed by strong analysis, typically gain a stronger organizational support for implementation.