Business intelligence

The phrase business intelligence (BI) may refer to:

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• a set of business processes
• the technology used in these processes, and
• the information obtained from these processes.

Organizations typically gather such information in order to assess the business environment, and cover fields such as marketing research, industry or market research, and competitor analysis. Competitive organizations accumulate business intelligence in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage, and may regard such intelligence as a valuable core competence in some instances.

Related Topics:
Assess the business environment - Marketing research - Industry or market research - Competitor analysis - Sustainable competitive advantage - Core competence

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Persons involved in business intelligence processes may use application software and other technologies to gather, store, analyze, and provide access to data (also known as business intelligence). Some observers regard BI as the process of enhancing data into information and then into knowledge. The software aims to help people make "better" business decisions by making accurate, current, and relevant information available to them when they need it.

Related Topics:
Application software - Data - Information - Knowledge - Business

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Generally, BI-collectors glean their primary information from internal business sources. Such sources help decision-makers understand how well they have performed. Secondary sources of information include customer needs, customer decision-making processes, the competition and competitive pressures, conditions in relevant industries, and general economic, technological, and cultural trends.

Related Topics:
Customer - Competition - Trend

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Each business-intelligence system has a specific goal, which derives from an organizational goal or from a vision statement. Both short-term goals (such as quarterly numbers to Wall Street) and long term goals (such as shareholder value, target industry share / size, etc) exist.

Related Topics:
Organizational goal - Vision statement - Wall Street - Shareholder value - Industry share

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Industrial espionage may provide business intelligence by using covert techniques. A gray area exists between "normal" business intelligence and industrial espionage.

Related Topics:
Industrial espionage - Gray area

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Some people use the term "BI" interchangeably with "briefing books" or with "executive information systems". One can regard a business intelligence system as a decision-support system (DSS).

Related Topics:
Executive information system - Decision-support system

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Business performance management offers software-oriented business intelligence systems that some see as a new generation of business intelligence, though most people in the field use the terms interchangeably.

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Business intelligence: History ►