BAASS Insights Technology Blog

The big question is: What is the importance of business intelligence? Before diving into this, it’s important to understand the topic in itself. Business intelligence is the transformation of raw data into meaningful information for your business; the term encompasses the processes and methods of analyzing, displaying, and reporting from your business operations for the goal of performance optimization. Through business intelligence, organizations can have an all-around view of their business, allowing for better decisions to be made.

From HRIS to CRM to ERP, there are countless acronyms that make up the unique alphabet of business technology. Every business owner should be familiar with these acronyms that represent advanced software that is integral to running an efficient business. That said, there is one abbreviation that acts as the umbrella for all this software, and that’s BI.

How do you think your company is doing in terms of performance? In what areas could you use improvement? If you are like most businesses, there are always improvements to be made, no matter how hard you have worked in the past to improve your performance.

Your business intelligence system can be used to improve forecasting. Forecasting can be tricky in almost all industries. Changing business conditions, economic uncertainty, and shifts in supply and demand can make accurate forecasting more guesswork than science. However, with the data derived from your business intelligence system, you can forecast with greater accuracy and precision.

The new buzzword in business intelligence is collaborative analytics. This is the method by which many people, rather than one single person in a company, can review, analyze, and compare data from business operations. Companies which use collaborative analytics follow the old adage “two heads are better than one” but extend the concept to many people; allowing many minds to examine business data to find solutions.

Business intelligence, or BI, is a type of software that can harness the power of data within an organization. It offers a better way to sort, compare, and review data in order for companies to make smart decisions.

As you consider various business intelligence solutions for your company, consider one often overlooked aspect of BI: the “supply chain” of data feeding into your BI software.

Cloud-based business intelligence has reached the point where it’s no longer a question of if you will join the cloud, but when. According to Forbes, 78% of business owners plan to switch to the cloud in the next year for their business intelligence data needs. That same number, 78%, plan to increase their use of cloud computing for BI data storage. Clearly, the cloud isn’t just a great idea - for many businesses, it’s as integral to how they run their operations as a telephone and internet connection.