What is Business Intelligence?

Hi,

I often have been asked "What is business intelligence?"

Well, the simple answer is:

You're always using it, doing, and consume it.

If you need answers about the following questions, YES YES, you are in a BI process!

• What happened?
• What is happening?
• Why?
• What will happen?
• What do we want to be happen?

What is business intelligence?

Business intelligence (BI) simplifies information discovery and analysis, making it possible for decision-makers at all levels of an organization to more easily access, understand, analyze, collaborate, and act on information, anytime and anywhere. This definition for BI demonstrates that traditional analyst-driven BI applications have evolved to include multiple initiatives to measure, manage, and improve on the performance of individuals, processes, teams, and business units.

What is performance management?

Performance management includes the processes used to manage corporate performance (such as strategy formulation, budgeting and forecasting); the methodologies that drive some of the processes (such as the balanced scorecard or value-based management); and the metrics used to measure performance against strategic and operational performance goals.

Performance management also comprises a series of analytical applications that provide the functionality to support these processes, methodologies, and metrics, targeted at strategic users and corporate-level decision-making.

Where is our BI Scope or Context?

You can find it here:

Personal BI

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125349

Team BI

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125350

Organizational

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125351

See Gartner positions Microsoft in Leaders Quadrant in the 2008 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms

Enjoy