Business intelligence is a broad term to describe a set of methods, processes, architectures, applications, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information to support business operation and growth (Cardin, 2007). It is used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making. BI systems combine data gathering, data storage, data integration, and knowledge management with analytical tools to present complex internal and competitive information to planners and decision makers (Negash, 2004). Traditionally it has evolved from executive information systems and management information systems to specifically focus on data driven decision making (Power, 2007).
With each new iteration, BI system’s capabilities increased as enterprises grew more sophisticated in their computational and analytical needs and as computer hardware and software matured (Negash, 2004). A complete BI enterprise system is able to cover the full spectrum of a BI process, including major components of data management and integration, analysis, presentation, delivery, and domain applications which involve all components.
References:
- Cardin, L. (2007). The Forrester Wave: Project Portfolio Management Tools, Q4 2007.
- Negash, S. (2004). Business intelligence. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 13(1), 177–195.
- Power, D. J. (2007). A Brief History of Decision Support Systems. Retrieved from http://DSSResources.COM/history/dsshistory.html
- Zheng, G., C. Zhang, and L. Li (2014), “Bringing Business Intelligence to Healthcare IT Curriculum: A preliminary investigation,” Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), Atlanta, GA, March 5-8, 2014
