Business Intelligence Definition - What is BI?

What is business intelligence?

Business intelligence (BI) uses data and analytics to gain insights into a business's operations. BI can use these insights to inform decision-making and improve company performance.

BI utilizes data from internal and external sources, machine learning, and predictive analytics to create a comprehensive view of an organization's current state and future goals.

Why you would need business intelligence

Business intelligence can help organizations make informed decisions, give them a competitive advantage, and increase efficiency in their operations.

By gathering and analyzing data from multiple sources, companies can gain insights into customer trends, market opportunities, operational performance, and more.

BI can then use this information to develop strategies that will help drive growth and improve profitability.

Business intelligence tools

Business intelligence tools can help organizations access, analyze and visualize data. Examples of BI tools include Data Warehouse Solutions, Business Analytics Software, Data Visualization Tools, and Machine Learning Platforms.

These BI tools can gather data from internal or external sources and generate insights that would otherwise be difficult or time-consuming.

Here are some example BI tools

Tableau is an easy-to-use, self-service analytics platform that offers various data visualization capabilities. Its comprehensive integration options enable users to seamlessly connect with a wide range of data sources, including Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Excel, and more. With Tableau, organizations can quickly access and analyze insights from their data to gain valuable business intelligence.

Alteryx is a leading self-service data analytics platform enabling users to explore and analyze their data quickly and easily. The platform allows users to integrate, prepare, blend, and analyze multiple data types from internal sources like traditional databases and external sources such as web services and flat files. Alteryx provides interactive visualizations to help uncover valuable business insights and publishable workflows for automating processes. Additionally, its built-in AI capabilities make it easy to predict future trends and spot anomalies in your data.

Qlik is a comprehensive data analytics platform that helps organizations gain actionable insights from their data. Qlik offers powerful visualizations to help visualize and explore complex datasets and advanced search capabilities to uncover valuable insights quickly. Additionally, its integration options make it easy to connect with traditional and cloud-based data sources, allowing users to consolidate disparate data sources into one place for analysis. It also provides predictive analytics capabilities and AI-driven recommendations for uncovering new insights from your data.

Domo is an enterprise cloud-based data platform that provides comprehensive and secure data management, integration, visualization, and analysis capabilities. It enables users to easily integrate and consolidate disparate data sources from traditional and cloud-based sources. Additionally, it features powerful visualizations to explore complex datasets and AI-powered analytics to help identify patterns in your data. Domo also helps organizations automate processes for quickly implementing operational changes based on the insights gathered from their data.

Google Looker Studio is a cloud-based data visualization and reporting platform. It allows users to turn their data into interactive, customizable dashboards and reports that can be easily shared with members of an organization. It provides powerful visualizations and exploration capabilities to help uncover new insights from your data, as well as the ability to connect to both traditional and cloud-based data sources. Additionally, it enables users to create automated reports that can be scheduled and sent directly to stakeholders regularly.

Microsoft Power BI is a cloud-based data analysis and visualization tool that enables users to easily extract, analyze, and visualize large quantities of data. It provides powerful data visualizations and exploration capabilities, such as drag-and-drop widgets, interactive charts, maps, and more. Additionally, it supports direct connections to various data sources, including Excel files and traditional databases. Microsoft Power BI also assists in building intelligent dashboards that can be shared with members of an organization for collaboration and decision-making.

Benefits of Business Intelligence

Business intelligence can provide organizations with various benefits, including improved decision-making, better customer relationships, greater efficiency, and more effective resources.

Businesses can gain valuable insights into their operations and customer trends by utilizing data from multiple sources.

This information can be used to inform decisions that will help drive growth and improve profitability.

Additionally, businesses can use data analytics to uncover new market opportunities and develop strategies for success.

Business Intelligence Use Cases

Retail Store

A business intelligence use case could involve using data to identify customer trends and preferences.

For example, a retail store might leverage BI tools to analyze customer purchase history to understand which products are popular and where customers spend the most.

By analyzing this data, retailer can target their marketing efforts more effectively and offer personalized services to enhance customer experience.

Additionally, customers can be segmented based on their behavior to create targeted campaigns that will help increase sales.

BtoB Sales

Business Intelligence (BI) can be used in B2B marketing to understand customer behaviors and trends better. For example, BI can help identify customers most likely to convert and when they are most likely to purchase.

This information can then be used to develop targeted marketing strategies that increase conversion rates and optimize marketing campaigns.

Additionally, BI allows marketers to gain insights into customer sentiment and engagement with products or services, helping them focus their efforts on the areas that will yield the highest ROI.