Strategic Planning Tag's Archives

concept of business intelligenceIt would not be entirely surprising if a large percentage of small to medium sized businesses were somewhat unable to articulate the concept of business intelligence and how it affects their firm. This does not mean necessarily mean incompetence or willful negligence. It might very well be that these businesses are in fact using business intelligence but have either not identified it or could have identified it under a different name.

The purpose of this article is to give a brief overview of the role that business intelligence can play in the effective administration of an entrepreneurial adventure. In the briefest manner possible, I will attempt to explore some of the broader themes that run through this concept.

Financial ReportThere is a notoriously hackneyed saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Leaving aside the obvious snigger from those who have heard it all before, it is quite true that good planning is the key to running a viable business. In order to plan the entrepreneur will need information and that is why business intelligence will underpin and ultimately determine the success of corporate planning.

This is more so the case when that planning has to integrate strategic objectives with operational objectives as well as paid due attention financial frameworks. In this article the practical ramifications of business intelligence are shown to impact greatly on the final plans of an organization.

Performance ReviewCollection and analysis of data by the businesses was not possible until the onset of 20th century. In the year 1970, introduction of decision support systems took place which was able to analyze only a single department at a time. In the year 1980, introduction of executive information systems took place which could efficiently summarize the ongoing transaction within a business.

By the year 1990, computer technologies were introduced which led to an improvement in the Business Intelligence. Customer relationship management also went through an improvement and advanced techniques of management, along with new technology, improved the reporting, analysis and planning in businesses. These latest development led to an integrated methodology termed as Business Performance Management. Basically, it is a holistic approach towards strategic planning.

enterprise business intelligenceThe term Business Intelligence or BI is a wide category of technologies and application programs used for storing, gathering and analyzing data from different data sources, thus providing a company with timely and reliable information that they need.

Through this type of analysis of the current and updated data, an enterprise is able to improve its ability of decision making. Business Intelligence is a discipline which comprises of several related activities including data mining, decision support, reporting and querying, online analytical processing, forecasting and statistical analysis.