ChristianSteven BI Blog

Business analytics are now being used in just about every industry from healthcare to construction; however, it is the retail industry that has experienced one of the most comprehensive technology conversions.  Business analytics assess trends, breaks down data and compare one division or category to another.  Analytics also possess various means of visualizing data that results in trends and relationships being intuitive with just a glance.

Enterprise reporting is a business intelligence tool that extends reporting and analysis capabilities.  From top influencers to anyone who impacts an organization – CIOs, IT staff, managers, analysts, and workers–instant access to vital information is needed to perform their jobs in the most productive manner.

Business Intelligence (BI) helps enterprise growth in a number of ways. By streamlining a vast amount of data quickly and effectively, BI provides a real-time analysis of sales, customer behavior and preferences, and current market trends. By reporting on historical, current, and predictive operations and performance, BI supplies all the data needed to increase the bottom line.

A combination of BI and social media analytics and social media analytics provides businesses with remarkably functional information such as search habits, customer demographics, and social behavior. This information is extremely useful for expanding revenue opportunities, driving marketing efforts, promoting brand awareness, and generating leads. 

The first known usage of the term “business intelligence” was by Richard Millar Devens in 1865.  It was not until 1989 when Gartner analyst Howard Dresner again brought the phrase “business intelligence” into common terminology.  As business intelligence became a commonly known phrase in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, an abundance of new vendors joined the market.  At that time, there were only basic functions of business intelligence - producing data and reports, organizing it, and visualizing it in a presentable way. Yet, there were two significant issues holding back the developing technology phase: time and complexity. 

All of your business operations can be reduced down to numbers. At their simplest form, everything that your business does is considered a data point and business intelligence are used to collect and analyze these data points, helping your business move forward. Analyzing the past gives insights into why a quarter turned a profit or sank into the red. Looking at the trend of data allows your business to make educated guesses about the future. Leveraging Business Intelligence to improve business operations is both an art and a science. Just as you need great supplies to paint great portraits, you must have great information in order to leverage business intelligence.