What Is Business Intelligence?

If that’s what BI is not, then what is it? BI combines products, technology, and methods to organize key information that management needs to improve profit and performance.

• A single product. Although many excellent products can help you implement BI, BI is not a product that can be bought and installed to solve all your problems “out of the box.”
• A technology. Although DW tools and technologies such as relational databases ETL tools, BI user interface tools, and servers are typically used to support BI applications, BI is not just a technology.
• A methodology. Although a powerful methodology (such as the our BI Pathway) is essential for success with BI, you need to combine that methodology with appropriate technological solutions and organizational changes.

More broadly, we think of BI as business information and business analyses within the context of key business processes that lead to decisions and actions and that result in improved business performance. In particular, BI means leveraging information assets within key business processes to achieve improved business performance. It involves business information and analysis that are:

• Used within a context of key business processes
• Support decisions and actions
• Lead to improved business performance

For business, the primary focus is to increase revenues and/or reduce costs, thereby improving performance and increasing profits. For the public sector, the primary focus is service to citizens, coping with budget constraints, and using resources wisely in support of an agency’s mission.