| Business intelligence (BI) is defined as a process of | | | | intelligence is concerned, it came long way back in sun |
| enhancing the competitive advantage of any entity | | | | Tzu's -Art of War according to which knowledge of |
| through intelligent usage of available information in | | | | one's strengths and weaknesses is vital in order to win |
| decision making. It actually consists of numerous | | | | a war. Thus the center of BI is linked with |
| activities focused towards intelligent decision making | | | | ascertainment of strengths and weaknesses of the |
| like data sourcing, filtering out the irrelevant information, | | | | associated company. Management of every |
| analyzing and assessing the data along with risks | | | | Company just like a war has to analyze internal and |
| concerned and ultimately through development of | | | | external factors so that effective strategies can be |
| solutions creating supportive decision making. In this | | | | built upon in a timely way. Information is gained about |
| highly competitive world, it has become vitally important | | | | every element associated with the market and this is |
| to have better understanding of your customers, | | | | what we term as business intelligence. Gathering |
| clients, business partners and your company. | | | | crucial and accurate data for the purpose of analyzing |
| There are some elementary methods to gain business | | | | is the idea behind it. Assessment of present status is |
| intelligence. First is database enhancement which is | | | | done by KPI's i.e. Key Performance Indicators. |
| started with a clean database. Incomplete, duplicate | | | | Companies try to gather relevant data more on timely |
| and inaccurate data becomes a problem therefore | | | | basis so that strategies can be adjusted more |
| having a quality database is very crucial. Thus it can be | | | | frequently which ultimately leads to satisfaction |
| termed as the most vital ingredient of business | | | | amongst customers, thereby, better customer |
| success. All internal data should be regrouped in a | | | | retention and creation. |
| single dataset or a group of interconnected ones so | | | | Business intelligence utilizes various tools because a |
| as to provide a useful step towards quality intelligence | | | | large volume of data is collected, organized and |
| development. | | | | analyzed. Some of the available tools are data |
| Business intelligence not only creates new customers | | | | warehousing, modeling and mining. These tools are |
| but also retains the old and existing ones. Businesses | | | | collectively used so as to improve the effectiveness |
| which utilize it understand customers-their needs, life | | | | of BI. |
| style, preferences, economic, social, cultural trends etc. | | | | The fact here is that more a business understands its |
| Thus BI helps company to achieve long term goals | | | | market ranging from customers to competitors, it |
| with ease successfully. As far as history of business | | | | steps towards gaining super success. |