Business Intelligence Overview

Data have always been an organizational asset; it is mandatory to control and analyze data to make better decisions and determine strategic directions for any endeavor. It is natural that computers have been used for these purpose s. In the mid-1990s, a new term emerged to categorize tools used to analyze and synthesize data in order to assist company governance through better business decision-making: business intelligence. At that time,the different applications were used to query and report business data.

In the years since, companies have continued to generate and store higher volumes of data. New technologies can answer the need for faster and more pervasive data, and adjectives such as big data, on-demand,mobile, and in-memory are used to describe this flexibility.

With this explosion of data, and the evolution of technical hardware, more complex tasks were requested of these tools. The area once covered by business intelligence has become specialized and has broadened to include the following tools, among others:

►     Extract Transform Load(ETL) tools to gather data from different sources and prepare them for dataware housing

►     Data Quality tools to cleanse data in order to remove redundancy or corrupted entry

►     Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) tools to present data through dash­boards and show key performance indicators (KPIs)

►     Statistical and Predictive Analysis tools to discover hidden relationships in data, there by providing the basis for making predictions about future events

Another business intelligence evolution is the democratization of its usage. Initially available to only a few, these tools are now available to a greater audience, thanks to easier user interfaces and new deployment modes. Now anyone with access to individual or corporate data can create reports to analyze it.