Learn how Business Intelligence has become a powerful tool for the most diverse types of companies

Even if corporate instinct is still important and present in corporate management, it is no longer possible to leave decision-making alone in the hands of it.

Thus, with the high competitiveness of the market, alternatives that are safe and offer visions of faster and more efficient strategies are needed.

It is in this scenario that Business Intelligence emerged. In this article, you will understand more about this concept and how it applies in business management processes, as well as other alternatives that can align with this data analysis. Throughout this article you will learn:

• What is Business Intelligence?
• How does Business Intelligence work?
• Step-by-Step to use Business Intelligence
• Why should I use Business Intelligence?
• The Business Intelligence Professional
• Business Intelligence Tools
• Business Intelligence & Big Data
• What is the difference between Business Intelligence and Data Mining?

What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence (BI) is a technology used in business management to provide insight and help a company's decision making for greater accuracy.

For this, it collects data, both internal (deadlines, goals, production flow, etc.) and external (current economic scenario, competition, among others), later organizes and analyzes this data and also enables its sharing and monitoring.

With so many search points and large amount of data generated today, Business Intelligence aims to facilitate the reading and interpretation of this information. In this way, opportunities and possibilities for the development of new strategies are identified.

However, it is worth remembering that Business Intelligence is not a software or program ready. Therefore, it is necessary to use some tools for BI to work through it (and you will know some of them in a little while!).

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How does Business Intelligence work?

The entire volume of information is stored in a database (Data Warehouse) for Business Intelligence to organize and analyze them. It monitors indicators such as total cost, profit margins, market values, among others.

Thus, it is possible to create a Dashboard with spreadsheets, history, graphs and reports based on evidence and data found.

However, Business Intelligence links information and reflects only the data's past, but it does not work with intelligence capable of pointing out the best solution and prescribing it. Insights on how to use this information and the best decision-making are left to the professional.

Step-by-Step to use Business Intelligence

The step-by-step approach to getting started with Business Intelligence begins a bit sooner with a preparation:

• Analyze your business: an analysis within your company is needed to better understand your priorities and what your demands are. Thus, there is no loss of time in projects that do not appear in the first instance.
  
• Planning: Based on the analysis of the company, it is easier to focus on the main parameters that Business Intelligence must analyze and which employees will participate in the process. In addition, it is good to stipulate the resources and time for BI deployment.
  
• Reuse the tools: Some tools and platforms are adaptable to Business Intelligence implementation, such as ERP, and integrating them with the new system (and with each other) will facilitate and optimize the process.

By completing these three steps correctly, Business Intelligence can begin to function within the enterprise. Initially, in order to support decision-making, the collection and organization of data and information is done, identifying links and common points.

After identification, the entire analysis is shown very visually. It is from this that the manager will make his assessment of the data shown, noting the possibility of new opportunities and points that need improvement to put together a strategy.

This business strategy should be passed on to all staff and employees through strategic maps and reports. To verify if it was a good choice to apply this strategy, some indexes are used such as:

• Customer satisfaction
• Profit margins
• Productivity

While not prescribing solution methods, Business Intelligence will discover and point out issues that undermine the company's development and also investigate its causes.

Finally, like any management process, monitoring is essential to continue the process. Thus, with the continuous evaluation of the demands and feedback of the team, it is possible to set goals, evaluate the results obtained and observe the evolution of the company.

Why should I use Business Intelligence?

The main advantages of using Business Intelligence are: process optimization and greater security when making decisions and strategizing. In this way, it is possible to boost operations within a company.

Through the generated reports, even in your own cell phone, it is much easier and faster to make decisions on complicated issues where the budget is heavily affected.

Thus, the direction of the company will not follow paths based on intuition and guesses, but rather more precise and grounded ways, in an intelligent and effective way.

The Business Intelligence Professional

As already mentioned, Business Intelligence does not provide any script to the employee of what should be done, it helps you to see business opportunities and make decisions more reliably.

To reduce errors and find the best solutions, it is necessary that all information found and organized with Business Intelligence be made available to the whole team in an integrated way and that these professionals be able to interpret them.

Therefore, it is important to know that the associations between what the database offers and the development of a strategy is the responsibility of the professionals working with Business Intelligence.

In addition, the learning of these professionals must be continuous and always stimulated, because at all times it is necessary to make several discoveries in completely different ways and to understand how they will influence their management.

It is up to him to unite the information found to the needs of his clients, taking advantage of this technology to see more than obvious information, always ahead of what is shown.

Business Intelligence Tools

Remember that Business Intelligence is not a platform, and you need some software so that it can work through it. I'll list four of the top tools used in BI for business:

• Tableau: is a complete and flexible Business Intelligence analytics platform designed to meet the individual needs of users, but can be staggered across the enterprise. It has a system of drag and drop that facilitates the organization of the data.
  
• IBM Watson Analytics: It has two versions: Plus and Professional, and the second allows multi-user access. The company also has an online community and official blogs provided by IBM for tips.
  
• Google Data Studio: is a free tool and enables the connection to other sources of the company itself. Anyone who has a Gmail account can use it.
  
• Microsoft Power BI: With it you can create reports and dynamic dashboards very quickly and simply. It also offers the possibility of integrating several databases, such as spreadsheets and social networks.

Business Intelligence & Big Data

The data found by Business Intelligence are structured, being obtained through graphs, reports, that is, in a well structured way. However, Big Data opens the possibility of going beyond, working with unstructured data (such as videos, social networking posts, emails, etc.).

Although more laborious, using Big Data Analytics in conjunction with Business Intelligence will bring a range of new information to the process, which will certainly increase the number of new possibilities and the accuracy of results.

However, in order to work in this way, the management professional must be much better prepared to interpret this new world of information than to use Business Intelligence alone.

What is the difference between Business Intelligence and Data Mining?

Although these terms within management seem to be the same or very close, there are some points that differentiate these two concepts.

• Solutions: Business Intelligence organizes and monitors the performance of the indicators, while Data Mining uses algorithms for deep statistical analysis to find patterns of data behavior and blind management points.
  
• Analysis: Using Business Intelligence, you can find only past data, without forecasts, and it is up to your professional to interpret them and have insights. Data Mining allows some predictions and discoveries of standards with computational intelligence.
  
• Results: Dashboards are offered by Business Intelligence with the information found. Data Mining presents reports with ready-made recommendations.
  
• Objective: The focus of Business Intelligence is on monitoring indicators, while Data Mining focuses on identifying parameters and patterns in data behavior, creating new indicators for BI.
  

Ideally, the company and its team bring together Business Intelligence and Data Mining to use and leverage the entire strategy-building process.

So, did you get it all about Business Intelligence?

Technology has invaded our lives and drastically changed everything we know, so it would not be any different in the business world.

Tools like Big Data, Data Mining and Business Intelligence have come to bring competitiveness to this business, increasing productivity and customer satisfaction.

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