What is Business intelligence (BI) and its application?

Business intelligence (BI) uses software to convert reams of information into bite-sized insights to inform decision-making. BI software receives data from a company's ERP system and other data sets via a sync tool or API. The BI tool then analyzes the data sets and presents findings in reports and dashboards. The purpose of BI is to help people in an organization obtain an easy to understand summary of how a business is tracking, so they can address areas of concern or opportunity. 

Common business intelligence applications

1. Dashboards and reporting

Reporting is a central part of business analytics and business performance management, and a dashboard is the best way of providing a summary of complex data and metrics. Dashboards are applications built into the business intelligence system that pull information into data visualizations like charts and graphs based on what the user wants to review.

Interactive dashboards provide a way for people to examine data to understand trends by clicking into the underlying detail. The dashboard does a lot of the heavy lifting by consolidating and streamlining data management and the time required to search for, merge and query the data.

A sales manager who wants to manage the sales function better can use cloud-based BI capabilities built into the BI tool to make stronger business decisions.

ICU Medical is a global medical devices and accessories company selling medical devices for oncology, vascular therapy and critical care. The company has thousands of products in its portfolio, so uses Phocas, an industry-specific business intelligence software to track its sales performance.

Vinod Devarapalli is the commercial administration manager at ICU Medical uses the business intelligence tool to build dashboards to determine the most profitable customers, low margin customers and declining customers. ICU uses its business data to make strategic and tactical decisions.

Mobile BI dashboards help the sales team and the regional sales team to make quick decisions on the go rather than having a boardroom meeting and pulling the information out so we can check with the finance team."
Vinod Devarapalli, ICU Medical

The potential use for BI extends beyond the typical business performance metrics of improved sales and reduced costs, especially when a business analyzes numerous data sources — from CRM to HR systems — to improve the understanding of customer behavior.

2. Data analysis and data mining

A business intelligence platform like Phocas empowers business users to harness the power of data analysis and data mining by turning raw data into actionable insights. Everyone in your team can easily access and explore historical data, identifying trends and anomalies that inform real-time decision-making. The BI solution allows you to drill into data across sales, inventory, and the supply chain helping people do ad hoc analysis when they need to know more about a customer or product. These insights help people adjust pricing and to better target offers to deliver a better customer experience.

3. Self-service BI business intelligence

IT professionals and data scientists have been the primary users of BI applications. However, BI tools have evolved to be more intuitive and user-friendly, enabling a large number of people across a variety of departments harness the tools.

Nearly all BI companies have one common goal: keeping the user experience simple. This reduction in builds, steps, and clicks does not mean the technology is any less sophisticated — in fact, it’s just the opposite. In relation to business intelligence, self-service solutions enable everyday users of all skill levels to independently access, query and analyze company data.

The Phocas artificial intelligence functionality reduces the learning curve for new users by automating key aspects of data analysis via natural language processing. By asking a question of your dataset, Phocas AI delivers the result with the steps take to mine the datasets for the answer.

Self-service BI tools come with fine grained user access and permissions, ensuring the right people see the right data and data integrity is maintained. Dependable self-service vendors will manage the data warehouses, the ingress of the data into the business intelligence solution and security and upgrades, so companies can manage how they see and review the data.

4. Using BI platforms for finance, budgets and forecasts

Budgeting and forecasting within a BI platform is now possible with the right technology. Robust BI systems connect with bespoke FP&A software to allow finance professionals to tap into extensive sales, finance and operational data, allowing for budgeting at every level and integration into a consolidated company-wide model then be able to use the data analytics functionality to review performance across branches or the whole of your business. The built-in budget templates within the platform allow finance teams to bring in as much complexity and detail as needed. And the connected software and continuous data flow makes it easier for finance teams to carry out driver-based budgeting without the need for excel spreadsheets.

The future of business intelligence

More leaders are considering ways to better use technology and data to proactively enable data-driven decision-making across all aspects of their operations.

The future of business intelligence (BI) will involve the integration of predictive analytics into the BI platform. By leveraging big data and sophisticated algorithms, BI platforms already offer advanced analytics of business operations. Predictive analytics allows business people to forecast trends and uncover opportunities with unprecedented accuracy. The built-in machine learning across your data will mean these predictions will be automatically available when you log in each day. The ability to benchmark performance and KPIs against industry standards and historical data will help businesses constantly improve.

BI platforms combined with FP&A software are changing how financial data is managed and utilized. With enhanced connectivity, these platforms can seamlessly integrate data from various sources, providing a comprehensive view of financial health. Advanced analytics tools enable finance professionals to perform once complex tasks such as scenario planning and demand planning with ease. This connectivity also facilitates real-time data monitoring and reporting, ensuring that decision-makers have access to the most up-to-date information. As a result, businesses can optimize their financial strategies, improve operational efficiency and drive growth through data-driven insights.