Business Intelligence :: Diagnostics for Business

Why BI?

All Businesses no matter what they do, want to know how well they are doing. Are we making profits? Will we continue to do so in the future? Oh! We are not doing well, so where is the problem? How / What to fix to get out of this situation? ….. There are n numbers of issues with any business, and they never end.

“The Best advice I ever got - Business is Problem…that problem solving is endemic of business in general.” -Tom Freston, co-founder of MTV Networks; ex-CEO of Viacom

OK, there are problems, but then how to detect, identify, fix and prevent them? Here comes Business Intelligence (BI) to the rescue. BI refers to applications, tools and practices used to assist a business attain a better understanding of these problems. The information provided by BI helps in making right decisions to improve and maintain business health; hence BI can also be called a decision support system (DSS). This is always an ongoing process…checking, fixing and improving the system.

BI is mostly analysis of Sales & Marketing data.  Profit and Loss are broader aspects, BI further drills down to tell you When, Where and Why.

Past , Present & the Future

BI applications study the historical business scenarios/trends; compares with the current situation, and then provide predictive future outcomes (forecast).

Further, monitoring the forecast versus achieved values provides effectiveness of the business decision taken.

…Stay tuned for more on BI, like Types and Tools for BI.