What is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term for the processes, technologies and strategies used to analyze and present insights derived from data, including everything from simple spreadsheets and graphs to customer satisfaction survey results and resources that make data usable. The primary objective is helping organizations make better and faster decisions.
Why it matters
Before BI adoption, companies performed most analytical work manually. Modern BI tools automate these processes, reducing time and resource expenditure while improving decision velocity across the organization.
See how Diwo operationalizes Business Intelligence.
Read the decision-intelligence playbooks that put this concept to work at Fortune 50 scale.
Related concepts
Data analytics is the systemic computational analysis of data. It is used for the discovery, interpretation and communication of meaningful patterns in data. The discipline also encompasses applying discovered data patterns to inform effective business decision-making.
Descriptive analytics is a type of data analytics that looks at past data to help companies understand what has happened to date. Unlike other analytical approaches, it focuses exclusively on historical insights rather than making predictions or drawing inferences. Results are presented through reports, dashboards, bar charts, and other visual formats designed for easy interpretation.
Predictive analytics employs data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning to assess the likelihood of future outcomes using historical information. Rather than merely documenting past events, it forecasts what will occur next, enabling executives and managers to adopt proactive, data-informed business strategies.
Self-service BI is an analytics approach enabling business users to independently access and explore datasets without requiring specialized technical backgrounds in data mining or statistical analysis. The tools empower business analysts, executives, and other non-technical staff to execute queries and develop their own dashboards, reports, and data visualizations.