What is Business Intelligence?

Click on the video above to find out what Business Intelligence is, and why it's useful for the for-purpose sector. Alternatively, a summary can be found below.

Business Intelligence - often abbreviated as BI - is the process of transforming data into insights for the purpose of informing a businesses strategic and operational decisions.

The good news is, you're probably already doing it! You might just call it something different. Most small business owners use intuition to make decisions at first. So long as you are making decisions based on facts, it's still business intelligence.

The next logical step from there is to get all those numbers in your head, and in your systems, into something like excel. But intuition and excel will only get you so far. Soon you'll have too many sources of data, too many questions, and probably some decisions that you don't even have data for.

So how do big businesses do it so successfully? Why do they employ a whole team dedicated to Business Intelligence? There are three main things that separate big business intelligence from small business intelligence:

  • Scale: The more data you have access to, the harder it is to manage and the more you have to analyse.
  • Depth: The more data you have to analyse, the deeper you can delve to find new and ground-breaking insights.
  • Automation: the more reliant you become on your business intelligence, the more important it is to automate both the collection and analysis of your data so you have up-to-date insights, on-demand

This all may sound very over-whelming and out of reach, but it doesn't have to be! Improving your business intelligence is a journey, and it's not going to happen over-night. You can start, or progress, that journey by asking yourself three seemingly-simple questions:

  • What are three decisions you make on a regular basis, and what data do you use to inform them?
  • What are two other sources of data you have access to that aren't currently being used for decision making?
  • And what is one piece of data you wish you had access to that would help you make better decisions?

Unfortunately, many small businesses often get stuck mid-way through their journey. There's this grey area where they know they need additional support to manage their business intelligence, but they can't afford to hire someone to do it full-time. And that's where I come in. If you're a business or team doing good for the world, feel free to reach out, and I'd be happy to help you level up your business intelligence.