What is business intelligence?#

Business intelligence (BI) is a set of tools and methods that turn an organization's scattered information into clear dashboards and reports. Instead of a manager waiting days for someone to pull a report out of Excel for every question, they see the answer in a few clicks.

An example#

The manager of a pharmacy chain sees a dashboard every morning that shows:

  • Yesterday's sales for each branch
  • Medicines that are running low on stock
  • A comparison with the same weekday last week

Based on these numbers, they adjust purchase orders.

Main components#

  • Data sources (databases, Excel, APIs)
  • The collection and cleaning process (ETL)
  • A data warehouse
  • A reporting and dashboard tool

Common tools#

Power BI, Tableau, Looker Studio and Metabase. Some of them have free or open-source versions that are enough to get started.

Difference from data analysis#

Data analysis is usually specialized, question-driven work. BI focuses on building standing reports that are accessible to all decision makers.

Note#

The best dashboard is one focused on a few important metrics. A dashboard with dozens of charts that nobody checks is just a cost.