What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence (BI) is a software platform designed for acquiring, organizing, and visualizing business data intuitively through reports, dashboards, graphs, and charts. BI tools enable users to access a wide range of data, including historical and current data, both internal and third-party, and even semi-structured and unstructured data. This information can be analyzed by users to gain a comprehensive understanding of their company's actual performance.

Why is business intelligence important?

Business Intelligence enables organizations to ask questions in plain language and get answers they can understand. Instead of relying on the most likely assumptions, they can base decisions on what their business data is telling them—whether related to production, supply chain, customers, or market trends.

Why are sales declining in this region? Where do we have excess inventory? BI helps answer these critical questions.

Business Intelligence helps organizations become data-driven enterprises, improving performance and gaining a competitive edge. They can:

Improve ROI by understanding the business and allocating resources intelligently to achieve strategic goals.

Uncover customer behavior, preferences, and trends and use insights to better target potential customers or personalize products in a way that responds to evolving market needs.

Monitor business operations and make corrections and improvements based on ongoing data insights.

Enhance supply chain management by monitoring activity along the entire line and communicating results with partners and suppliers.

Retailers, for example, can improve cost savings by comparing performance and benchmarks across stores, channels, and regions. Additionally, with visibility into the claims process, insurers can see where they are not meeting service objectives and use such insights to improve outcomes.