Business Intelligence Software – a Beginner’s Guide to the Basics

In this age, any enterprise, if it needs to survive and thrive, needs to

have the best possible methodologies and processes to manage the

most important business resource of them all – information. And the

technology of the era will give you the power to extract all the utility

you need from every tiny bit of data generated by your business

processes and the environment that affects it. Business Intelligence is

the answer you are looking for here.

What is business Intelligence?

Simply defined, business intelligence can be simply understood as

any real-time or current or past information that can be used by

business professionals for analysing the current or past or upcoming

business scenarios and taking the right decisions. Most enterprises

will have a stream of data coming in from all sorts of functions,

departments and environmental heads. The key to making any sense

of it all will be effective management and processing. That is where

business intelligence software comes into play. These tools sort

through the information generated and make it available as and when it is required by business professionals to

enable them for making timely and correct decisions.

What business intelligence tools can you use?

The recent spur in information technology development has created many options to choose from when it comes to

business intelligence processing and management. This software comes with many capabilities including advanced

functionalities, information clearance standards, data processing applications and business model analysis features.

Here is a list of some of the common categories of business intelligence tools available in the current scenario to

help you streamline your enterprise’s information flows.

Local information systems

Data mining programs

Dashboards, specific to user definition, for data processing

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

Real time data collection and reporting

Data warehousing models

Query software for access to specific information types

Information reporting systems and formats

Spreadsheets

Business performance indicators

Strategy model generators

Information clearance protocols

Other than spreadsheets, almost all business intelligence software will incorporate these features and functions into

their system to provide a comprehensive solution to users. Some applications are developed to suit specific business

requirements and have now come to be industry standards. You will even find those with a built in ERP software

suite. You can even have customised business development software built specifically to suit your enterprise’s

requirements. Then there are some open source options available as well that you can use, but the capabilities of

those tools will be more suitable to general information processing purposes. You will have to engage your IT team

to look into the platform in case you need any specific features for your requirements.

Overall, survival in the current business scenario is simply not possible unless you stay on top of the game. And the

way to do that is with information. Business information software is the tools that can help you ensure your

enterprise’s future prosperity. Visit BeyondIntelligence.org to know more.