Business intelligence refers to the many different technologies and techniques through which a business presents its data and information. The primary role of business intelligence is to improve efficiency in how business decisions are made. Through cloud business intelligence solutions, both software and services are transformed into predictive insights, thus helping the business plan and strategize for the future.

Why Business Intelligence is Essential to an Organization

Business intelligence gives the latest, historical and future predictions of different aspects of a business. It mostly revolves around how a business operates, primarily in departments such as sales, production, financial, and so on. Through business intelligence, organizations are now including data in their information management solutions . Business intelligence helps companies make better decisions because it helps them refer to both historical and current data. In the long run, companies run more efficiently, with minimal interruptions. Data collected helps the company in different aspects, such as in the hiring process. Other areas where cloud business intelligence can be helpful include:

• Defining customer behavior
• Comparing your company data to that of competitor
• Tracking both employee and company performance
• Increasing company operations
• Improving service delivery
• Finding out other ways to increase profit

How Business Intelligence Works

Business intelligence combines visualization of data, data mining, business analysis, and other tools to help the organization make data-driven decisions. It helps a company to have more organized data, thus leading to little or no inefficiencies. Some processes of business intelligence are:

• Performance metrics and benchmarking: Business intelligence is unmatched when it comes to its ability to compare different performance data and information. The results or findings are then compared with the organization’s goals and vision.
• Querying: Querying allows concerned parties to ask data-related questions. Business intelligence provides the answers to the queries, with the help of information obtained from the organization’s database.
• Data mining: Data mining involves the use of different databases and statistics to discover different trends in large scale datasets.
• Performance metrics: This is achieved by comparing the latest performance data with historical data. Afterward, the results are compared with the organization’s goals using customized dashboards
• Data visualization: Here, the collected data is visually represented on charts, histograms, and graphs for further analysis
• Data preparation: During this stage, collected data is identified, compiled and measured for future analysis.

Application of Business intelligence Solutions in Modern Businesses

Businesses have different queries and goals. To plan and analyze the current position of an organization, they apply different cloud business intelligence solutions . The process involves tracking performance data against their annual goals, collecting the required data, analyzing the data, and finally making a decision on the most appropriate course of action to be taken. Both data analytics and business analytics are used to come up with the most excellent business intelligence solution. Data analytics involves the business asking hard questions such as, “what caused this to happen,” and “what will happen next.” Business analytics includes deep-diving into the data and conducting processes such as data mining, predictive analytics, and other forms of statistics.