Business intelligence (
BI) is a set of theories,
methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform
raw data into meaningful and useful information for business purposes.
BI can handle large amounts of information to help identify and develop
new opportunities. Making use of new opportunities and implementing an
effective strategy can provide a competitive market advantage and
long-term stability.
[1]
BI technologies provide historical, current and predictive views of
business operations. Common functions
of business intelligence
technologies are reporting,
online analytical processing,
analytics,
data mining,
process mining,
complex event processing,
business performance management,
benchmarking,
text mining,
predictive analytics and
prescriptive analytics.
Though the term business intelligence is sometimes a synonym for
competitive intelligence
(because they both support decision making), BI uses technologies,
processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data
and business processes while competitive intelligence gathers, analyzes
and disseminates information with a topical focus on company
competitors. If understood broadly, business intelligence can include
the subset of competitive intelligence.
[2]
Read more...
