What is Business Intelligence(BI)
• BI(Business Intelligence) is a set of processes, architectures,
and technologies that convert raw data into meaningful
information that drives profitable business actions.
• Business intelligence (BI) refers to the procedural and technical
infrastructure that collects, stores, and analyzes the data
produced by a company’s activities.
• It is a suite of software and services to transform data into
actionable intelligence and knowledge.
• Business intelligence (BI) combines business analytics, data
mining, data visualization, data tools and infrastructure, and
best practices to help organizations to make more data-driven
decisions.
⮚ BI represents the technical infrastructure that collects, stores, and
analyzes company data.
⮚ BI parses data and produces reports and information that help
managers to make better decisions.
⮚ Software companies produce BI solutions for companies that wish to
make better use of their data.
⮚ BI tools and software come in a wide variety of forms such as
spreadsheets, reporting/query software, data visualization software,
data mining tools, and online analytical processing (OLAP).
⮚ Self-service BI is an approach to analytics that allows individuals
without a technical background to access and explore data.
Key points
why business intelligence is important
⮚ Business intelligence can help companies make better decisions by
showing present and historical data within their business context
⮚ Analysts can leverage BI to provide performance and competitor
benchmarks to make the organization run smoother and more
efficiently.
⮚ Analysts can also more easily spot market trends to increase sales or
revenue. Used effectively, the right data can help with anything from
compliance to hiring efforts.
How business intelligence works
⮚BI platforms traditionally rely on data warehouses for their baseline
information.
⮚A data warehouse aggregates data from multiple data sources into one central
system to support business analytics and reporting.
⮚Data warehouses can include an online analytical processing (OLAP) engine to
support multidimensional queries. For example: What are sales for our
eastern region of India versus our western region of India this year,
compared to last year?
OLAP(online analytical processing), a computing method that enables users to
easily extract data in order to analyze it.
Real world applications of (BI)
⮚ Retailers – BI can use segmentation to differentiate the types of customers such as those
who purchase small quantities but do so often, and those who spend big but do so rarely.
(the latter).
⮚ Supermarkets – BI helps in gathering comprehensive data about customers and shoppers to
determine who may be candidates for promotional offers.
⮚ Service Providers – Utility companies use BI to predict when a customer will likely transfer
to another service provider by collating billing information, website visits, customer
inquiries, and other such metrics.
⮚ E-commerce – You have probably come across Amazon’s line “People who viewed that
product also like this…” which is a BI-driven, data mining method to promote cross-sells and
up-sells. This is a popular technique in online selling sites.
How it helps other companies
A few ways that business intelligence can help companies make
smarter, data-driven decisions:
• Identify ways to increase profit
• Analyze customer behavior
• Compare data with competitors
• Track performance
• Optimize operations
• Predict success
• Spot market trends
• Discover issues or problems
⮚ As more information and processes take on a digital format, tools like business intelligence
(BI) have become increasingly valuable
⮚ Despite its many benefits, BI comes with its fair share of disadvantages
⮚ Here are five common problems with BI and how you can avoid them.
1. Data Breaches
One of the most pressing concerns is the risk of leaks. If you use BI applications to handle
sensitive information, an error in the process could expose it, harming your business, customers
or employees.
2. High Prices
Business intelligence software can be expensive.. You also have to consider the costs of the
hardware and IT staff needed to implement.
Disadvantages of Business intelligence(BI)
3. Difficulty Analyzing Different Data Sources
The more encompassing your BI, the more data sources you’ll use. A variety of different
sources can be beneficial in giving you well-rounded analytics, but systems may have
trouble working across varied platforms.
4. Poor Data Quality
In this digital age, you have more information at your disposal than ever, but this can prove
to be problematic. A surplus of data can mean that a lot of what your BI tools analyze is
irrelevant or unhelpful, muddying results and slowing down processes
5. Resistance to Adoption
Not all disadvantages of BI deal with the software itself. One of the most substantial
obstacles facing BI is employees or departments not wanting to integrate it into their
operations. If your company doesn’t adopt these systems across all areas, they won’t be as
effective.
Disadvantages of (BI)