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A business intelligence system has become one of the hottest buzzwords of our era, and for good reason. As the economy continues to stagnate and business markets fizzle, owners and managers must find new and better ways to compete in the marketplace or face extinction. Over the past few years, one tool has evolved that has proven its ability to give decision makers the ability to collect, display, analyze and present business data. That tool is the business intelligence system.
Data, A Business Natural
Business has a natural tendency to collect mountains of data. Virtually anything we can think of to quantify will probably end up in a database somewhere. To our great credit, business decision makers have enlisted a large number of software tools to generate all kinds of useful analytic tools to help them evaluate business options. Unfortunately, in many cases, this is where the process stops, since much of the data that is available as a result ends up packed away in computers, unreachable–and often incomprehensible–to those not familiar with the systems.
Data Turns a Corner
In the past few years, however, technology has developed to form a system of software programs that are covered under the catch-all phrase “business intelligence systems” or “BI” for short. In short, a BI is used to draw together all of the different systems into one tool that can be used to effectively plan business operations.
The BI gives decision makers a better look at all phases of business operations in order to better evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. It is interesting to note that this ability has evolved with the same tools to evaluate a competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.
Ingredients of a BI
The normal components of a BI include tools for spreadsheets, query and data mining tools, dashboard capabilities, analytic capabilities, and in newer instances, a geographic information system (GIS). By working these systems together, information can be better gathered, stored, displayed and analyzed in a form that is far greater than any of the elements could provide by themselves.
Just as is the case with many business systems, there are advances that need to be made as BIs improve in their processes. Among these are seamlessness of the analytics as well as presentation, but this process is gaining momentum. More important still is the ability that a BI offers big business that should be able to expand to the benefit of small businesses.
Is a Business Intelligence System for Everyone?
In the past few years a growing number of institutions such as colleges, universities and libraries have expanded their capabilities to allow members of the public to benefit from their techno-centered tools. These include, most notably, GIS, which is now not only a common addition to libraries, but in government offices for the use of citizens.
An important reason for this growth are the interactive tools that allow common use of the systems. And as the tools become easier to use, there can be little doubt that the general use of BI will increase among not only business decision makers, but users of all types.
