Business Intelligence (BI) is described as the transformation of raw data into relevant and practical information for business purposes. This term encompasses the processes and methods needed to analyze, display, and report from business operations or activities. The implementation of Business Intelligence can help your organization make better decisions, especially due to the abundance of information that can be retrieved nowadays; except to have access to your business’ information easily.

As the presence of business intelligence continues to grow in organizations, it is important to understand the essence. However, more than anything, it is important to understand where you can utilize and implement business intelligence in your organization. Business intelligence is widely used across many industries, as well as many departments.

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.