What Is Business Intelligence?

Have you been hearing the buzzwords “Business Intelligence” lately but not exactly sure what it means?. Read on and we’ll give you a rundown of what Business Intelligence is and how to take the first steps towards implementing it in your business.

Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of processes and systems that allows a business to transform raw data into meaningful information that helps management make the best possible decisions. Simply put, Business Intelligence is about getting the right information to the right people at the right time.

So how do you know what the right information is? As CFO’s & accountants, our minds naturally turn to financial information – turnover, margins, cashflow, ratios, etc… All of this information is important, but BI is about so much more than just financial data. The real power of BI comes from non-financial data.

Non-financial data could be in the form of granular historical information (eg. customer demographics) or it may be a set of non-financial Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) such as sales quantities, staff efficiency ratios, average job completion times or any number of other metrics relevant to the business or industry.

Most businesses have some level of financial & non-financial data collection, but it’s usually contained across several applications, databases or spreadsheets. The power of BI applications is the ability to consolidate this data in a single place and produce meaningful analysis of management information. This usually takes the form of a set of tables, lists and charts combining financial and non-financial metrics across multiple time periods. For example, a builder might create a BI report which analyses and compares revenue, job margins, staff downtime, cashflow and marketing KPI’s month on month for the past 12 months.

With some practice and assistance from a professional well versed in the analysis of Business Intelligence data, it’s possible to identify trends and correlations across time. A good BI professional will help you analyse the real world reasons behind these trends and create powerful forecasting models that allow you see where your business is going.

Stay tuned for some exciting developments in Rockwall’s Business Intelligence offering.