Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) is the use of data to create visualizations. This allows people in various business units to make better data driven decisions.

Frequently BI is also called a “dashboard”. The concept is the same as an automobile’s dashboard. Giving you only what you need to operate the car effectively. Dashboards should always be tailored to the task(s) at hand.

For example: accounting departments rarely need to see the same data set as sales teams. This situation would benefit from having 2 dashboards or more.

This is especially valuable with incredibly complex data sets. Imagine trying to read a spreadsheet with thousands of columns of data. It would be impossible to see trends and what really drives your business in that format. BI gives you access to the data you need to make the right choices.