Querying: Asking the data specific questions, BI pulling the answers from the datasets.Descriptive analytics: Using preliminary data analysis to find out what happened.Performance metrics and benchmarking: Comparing current performance data to historical data to track performance against goals, typically using customized dashboards.Reporting: Sharing data analysis to stakeholders so they can draw conclusions and make decisions.Data mining: Using databases, statistics and machine learning to uncover trends in large datasets.Over the past few years, business intelligence has evolved to include more processes and activities to help improve performance. All of these things come together to create a comprehensive view of a business to help people make better, actionable decisions.

Much more than a specific “thing,” business intelligence is rather an umbrella term that covers the processes and methods of collecting, storing, and analyzing data from business operations or activities to optimize performance. Tableau's Explain Data feature helps to quickly identify possible explanations of outliers and trends in data. This article will serve as an introduction to BI and is the tip of the iceberg. Modern BI solutions prioritize flexible self-service analysis, governed data on trusted platforms, empowered business users, and speed to insight. It further developed in the 1980s alongside computer models for decision-making and turning data into insights before becoming specific offering from BI teams with IT-reliant service solutions. Traditional Business Intelligence, capital letters and all, originally emerged in the 1960s as a system of sharing information across organizations. It’s important to note that this is a very modern definition of BI-and BI has had a strangled history as a buzzword.

In practice, you know you’ve got modern business intelligence when you have a comprehensive view of your organization’s data and use that data to drive change, eliminate inefficiencies, and quickly adapt to market or supply changes.

Reference Materials Toggle sub-navigationīusiness intelligence (BI) combines business analytics, data mining, data visualization, data tools and infrastructure, and best practices to help organizations to make more data-driven decisions.

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