What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence is a term referring to software that takes data from the entire enterprise and ties it together to form a cohesive picture of the enterprise as a whole and present it in a BI Dashboard.

A BI system typically will identify, extract, and analyze business data.  IE Sales, Collections, Payroll, Overhead, etc… in order to give management timely and accurate data that will assist them in making critical business decisions.  This is why it’s often called a DSS or Decision Support System. 

Business Intelligence uses primarily internal data using data warehousing, ETL (Extract Transfer Load) and Data Mining technologies to pull data from often unrelated / non-interconnected systems.

Types of Business Intelligence tools and software include:

• Speradsheets – Excel, etc…
• Reporting software – Crystal Reports, etc…
• OLAP – Online Analytical Processing
• Dashboards
• Data Mining Software
• Decision Engines
• BPM Software

Popular Business Intelligence Software includes:

• RapidMiner (Open Source)
• Spago BI (Open Source)
• Jaspersoft (Open Source)
• Pentaho (Open Source)
• MicroStrategy (Commercial)
• IBM Cognos (Commercial)
• SAP BI (Commercial)
• Oracle Hyperion (Commercial)
• Oracle Business Intelligence Suite (Commercial)
• SAP NetWeaver BI
• Business Objects
• OutlookSoft