Business Intelligence

what is BI (Business Intelligence)?

Business Intelligence is basically a set of multiple methodologies, technologies, techniques, and tools. It is basically a file processing system of an enterprise, there are many flaws and problems in the traditional file processing system that generates the need for the new file processing system with the tools and techniques of the BI (BI stands for the business intelligence). All those tools and techniques are used in an enterprise or business in order to transform the data into information. The output of the transformation is in the form of meaningful and useful information. The information is further used for better decision-making in an enterprise.

The tools involved in business intelligence focus and work according to the techniques used in the traditional way of reporting and analytics.

The basic purpose of business intelligence is for the decision-making process of an enterprise, as the decision-making process directly affects the enterprise. In order to make better the decision-making process of an enterprise, business intelligence uses a combination of multiple tools; the purpose of the tools is to perform multiple functions of the data of an enterprise. Those functions performed by the tools used by the business intelligence are the gathering, storing, accessing, and analyzing process.

It is noted that the BI is considered the combination of two things.

The tools and the systems.

The basic purpose of this combination between the tools and systems is to improve the strategic plan for the process of analysis.

what are the flaws of the file processing system?

There are many flaws in the traditional file processing system; those flaws become a reason for multiple failures in an enterprise. Flaws in the traditional file processing system there originate from the need for a file processing system based on business intelligence. Some flaws of the traditional file processing system are:

1. There is data redundancy noted in the files that create problems in the process of report generation. The term data redundancy means the duplication of the data in multiple files (the same data in multiple files).
2. Data inconsistency is another major flaw of the traditional file processing system. It means in multiple files the entry of the same entity is different which causes the problem in accessing the accurate results. 
3. The poor security system is a major flaw in the traditional file processing system.
4. Another noted flaw is a lack of flexibility.
5. The problem in sharing the data is also a major flaw in the traditional file processing system.

Why BI is preferable to traditional file processing?

There are many benefits of business intelligence; it supports the business in many ways. Let’s discuss some benefits of business intelligence techniques to enterprises.

1. The BI has a positive impact on the efficiency of any enterprise; it improves the efficiency of an enterprise from multiple aspects. The increase in the efficiency rate also increases the productivity of an enterprise. Productivity has a direct impact on the revenue of that enterprise. Business Intelligence saves a lot of time for an enterprise and generates reports, data extraction, data interpretation, and many other documents with ease in less time.
2. Business intelligence helps an enterprise in order to know the customer’s trend; it helps an enterprise to make plans in order to improve sales and revenue according to the customer’s demand or trend. There are many benefits of business intelligence for an enterprise; therefore multiple enterprises are investing their time, effort, and money to implement the tools and techniques of business intelligence.
3. The implementation of the BI systems in an enterprise is a step toward the improvement of the visibility of that enterprise. BI is providing better control over the processes and the operating procedures of an enterprise. The tools and techniques of business intelligence eliminate the long process of the evaluation of hundred pages of the annual reports; the purpose behind the evaluation of reports is to assess the performance level of multiple departments. The BI helps an enterprise to identify the areas for improvement without more effort and more consumption time.
4. It is necessary for the sales and the marketing team to maintain the records for this purpose. The application named CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is used.
5. The purpose is to handle all the interaction processes with the customers, the tools, and the techniques of the BI. It helps the enterprise in every task related to CRM like the identification process of the new customers, the tracking and retaining process of the existing customers, and many more.
6. There is a risk of human errors in the analysis reports of an enterprise. There is a risk of them being outdated data before the submission of the data for the reviewing process of the data. The tools and the techniques of the BI enable the user or an enterprise to access the data in real time. It uses multiple tools like spreadsheets (the visual representation through visual boards), scheduled emails, and many more. A large amount of data can easily be interpreted and distributed quickly among the departments of an enterprise with the aid of multiple business intelligence tools.
7. The tools of business intelligence are providing many benefits. But the most important benefit provided by the tools and techniques of the BI is the report of the customer, the progress report of the customer, the report regarding multiple techniques implemented by the competitors, and many more. This help to make planning and implement techniques in order to meet the competition level with multiple enterprises.