What is Business Intelligence?

The term “business intelligence” is used broadly and has evolved today to become an umbrella term including methodologies, processes, architectures and technologies to improve decision making by using fact-based support systems. At the heart of business intelligence is the ability of an organization to collect and organize data, and access accurate and timely information (derived from the data) to make appropriate decisions that support its vision, mission and goals in an efficient manner.

In contrast to ERP systems such as Mosaic (Oracle Peoplesoft) that are primarily designed for processing operating transactions and focus on single subject area, BI systems are multi-dimensional and synthesize data from multiple subject areas to facilitate better decision making. Business intelligence is about providing better business insights from analysis based on data from multiple subject areas and is not just a tool that delivers nicer looking interfaces to operational or transactional data.