Isn’t every organization willing to increase performance and enhance productivity?
Well, any expert would tell you business analysis and business intelligence are the solutions. Let’s figure out how:
Business intelligence is the most valuable data tool that you can purchase for your organization. This tool would collect and evaluate data to create actionable insights. The purpose of achieving this data is to make improved business decisions. This tool would help you understand your business decisions in an enhanced manner. You can discover the flaws and loopholes in your workflows.
Business analytics is a sub-category of business intelligence. Like BI tool, it analyzes the historical data but the intention of data analysis here is different. A business analytics tool analyzes and evaluates data to predict business trends. It focusses on bringing a change in the outcome.
Business Intelligence
Business intelligence indicates maintaining, optimizing, and streamlining the current functions of the business. This term encompasses all the tools and technologies that help in the collection and analysis of business information. Simply put, its major objective is to allow data-driven decisions in any business.
Business intelligence software provides several benefits:
- You can improve the operational efficiency of your business, which will increase organizational productivity.
- You can evaluate operational and financial data which can help you figure out issues in the system.
- BI is widely used to analyze financial data to understand the compliance structure and detect frauds in the system sooner than later.
- You can visualize your reports in an enhanced and more understandable manner with a BI tool.
- You can achieve powerful data analytics and reporting abilities.
- The real-time, attractive dashboards and intuitive reports can help you achieve actionable information for your business.
You may be wondering that reporting and analysis are the same. Then, why are we referring to them as separate entities? Here’s why.
Reporting is organizing data so that you can monitor how the separate business units are performing. Analytics is evaluating this data to extract information that can help in improving the performance of the business.
Moving forward, you should understand that BI always gives you an insight into past and present. Its focus is to improve the functions of today. Its major aim is to improve the current processes, workflows, and tasks.
Business Analytics
Like BI, business analytics also analysis data but it also considers predictive analytics. It helps you generate appealing visual reports and dashboards.
There are several advantages to business analytics:
- You can identify and mitigate organizational weak points and loopholes.
- You can analyze the past and current data to achieve useful information.
- Using statistical analysis, quantitative analysis, and data mining, BA identifies the previous business trends.
- After collecting and evaluating data, BA uses this data for predictive analysis.
- Using this data, BA tools can predict future business conditions.
- BA allows you to conduct ad-hoc reporting, which means you feed the tool data in real-time and ask target questions based on this data. With the help of these answers, you can make informed business decisions.
This tool solves the issues that have not occurred yet. It gives you a peek into the future and keeps you from making bad business decisions.
Business Intelligence or Business Analytics: The Winner
Honestly, we don’t have a clear winner. There is a reason why many businesses use both the tools simultaneously for their functioning. While BI is for the past and present analysis, BA is for past and future analysis.
You can use any tool according to your requirements. If you want to enhance and modify the current processes of the business, then BI is your tool. But, if you want to make better decisions and change the future outcomes for your business, then BA is your tool. When you want to use both, you use both.
Simply analyze the requirements of your business and make the decision.