Business Intelligence
Managers are demanding better access to information so that they can make informed decisions and plan for the future. Tools have been on the market to achieve this for a number of years but they are only just being made affordable to mid-sized organisations.
Business intelligence (BI) systems give you the tools to gather, access and analyse data and information about an organisations operations. Data sources include finance, CRM, HR and any other key system within a business. The aim is to give management a more comprehensive knowledge of the factors affecting their business to help them make better business decisions.
What this means in practice is that BI systems aim to answer the cry from management for more structured and timely information. This can be presented as:
- Pivot tables (cubes)
- Charts
- Graphs
- Reports
However, to differentiate BI from simple reporting, it should enable users to carry out further analysis of the information presented - for example to 'slice' data in different ways or to graph data on the fly.
There is a lot of jargon in the BI world but Wikipedia has a clear definition if you would like to read more.
Alternatively you may like to review Axle Studio
