Business intelligence software is not a new phenomenon and it has been around in various, albeit less sophisticated forms, for years if not decades. It is actually more or less exactly what it says it is, software that helps you to run your business in an intelligent way. It is, of course, also a whole lot more than that, as it is an over arching term for a wide range of tools that support and inform various aspects of strategic planning processes, freeing up valuable, and expensive, executive time to actually manage, operate and make decisions instead of labouring over time intensive reporting and planning methodologies that can be efficiently and easily subsumed into some of the many applications available from contemporary business intelligence software. In brief, business intelligence software can help you to collect data and information on most issues of operational relevance - from customer trends to employee performance - and to store, access, use, analyse and apply the value learned from the process to trend analysis and new objectives. It can help manage and understand your stakeholders and your profits as well - in essence business intelligence software is sufficiently versatile to be applied for more or less purpose you may have in mind. To give you an idea of what this diverse functionality entails, let's take a look at few common uses.
A very common use of business intelligence software is found in the form of executive scorecards and dashboards which are an easy way for management to look at key performance indicators and vital measurements in a fraction of the time that it would take were traditional reports to be drawn up each time that an executive wanted an assessment of performance of growth or another key measurable. With scorecards and dashboards management can simply take one look and understand what the situation is at a given point in time. A second way in which business intelligence software is fairly widely used is in the area of online analytical processing (OLAP) capabilities which allows users of the software to manipulate date in an infinite number of ways and with immediate effect. This is a critical strategic tool as it enables management and executives to view data from numerous different perspectives at the same time and down to the smallest detail. Data mining is another extremely useful capacity of business intelligence software in today's globalised world where companies have to deal with massive and growing volumes of data on a daily basis. Working through this data to find exactly what you need can be an almost impossible task, even if you really know what you are doing. The data mining features of business intelligence software packages, however, make it possible to locate and extract only the most important and relevant information from enormous data sets, saving vast amounts of time and money, while ensuring that the information itself is used appropriately.
There are very few companies that do not need some form or other of business intelligence software. In many instances it may be the very tool that gives you the vital competitive edge to move ahead of your rivals and optimise your strategic planning in a way you did not think possible.
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