The Difference Between Business Intelligence & Business Analytics

1. The Difference Between Business Intelligence & Business Analytics

2. In the broadest sense of the word, analytics applies to all activities involving problem-solving using technology, and is typically divided into four categories along a continuum, comprised of descriptive analytics, diagnostic analytics, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics. Let’s take a closer look at business intelligence: Sitting within the descriptive phase of the analytics continuum, business intelligence is where most organizations begin an analytics program, and takes advantage of software and services to help transform data into actionable intelligence. In turn, this intelligence enables organizations to devise strategic plans and make tactical business decisions.

3. While some business owners may use both BI and analytics data, most professions distinguish between the two. BI when used for businesses Using structured data from traditional enterprise platforms, BI gives insight into past financial transactions, or past actions in areas like operations and the supply chain. Helping to provide visibility into those areas and business tasks, is where the true value of business intelligence lies. BI tools are much more intuitive and user-friendly nowadays, with many being automated.

4. How BI can be a gateway to business analytics With limited capabilities, experts say that business intelligence alone is not helping to drive new business opportunities and growth, and that many more organizations are choosing to combine BI tools with analytics in order to answer their increasingly complex questions. Experts also say that advanced analytics are a capability most companies would like to have, but few have access to the appropriate technology. For example, a business might want to begin by studying their sales data, and then want to take it a step further and organize the data somehow, perhaps by state or product.

5. Then, they’ll want to look at their most frequent customers for the year and what attributes they share, before trying to determine which ones will be their most frequent customers the following year. Getting more complex as the data goes along, no longer are business owners merely adding things up and presenting them in different dimensions, but are now trying to project them forward using predictive analytics; something that BI alone simply can’t handle.

6. The future of business intelligence: Advanced analytics still requires significant data from data professionals, but the extent of their involvement is very much dependent on each specific business case. Many companies buy off-the-shelf BI products along with commercial analytic products, but they still employ their own, independent data pros to build the machine learning and AI capabilities they need.

7. That said, as companies demand more from their BI platforms and other analytic tools, the market for solutions is changing, and at a fast pace. Bringing in more and better data signals, is leading to the production of reports that are a lot more accurate, and a lot more insightful, and the distinctions between BI and more advanced analytics that were traditionally present, are becoming increasingly blurred. While technology companies tend to be at the higher end of the spectrum when it comes to adopting advanced analytics capabilities, there is ample room for businesses of all types to take advantage of it, particularly with so many third-party analytical companies vying for trade.

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