ERP Software

Business Intelligence Software

Business Intelligence can be defined as the broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to information that pertains to the history, current status, or future projections of a business organization. Most businesses process copious quantities of information on a daily basis. In order to organize and utilize that data, a wide array of software solutions is needed –usually one per department for sales, inventory, warehousing, accounting, human resources, and customer relations- although it is possible to store the information in one, centralized data warehouse.

Business Intelligence Software is software that is designed to analyze this stored data in a way that allows for a clearer grasp of a business’ strengths and weaknesses. This software allows a company’s management team to more accurately examine the relationship between information coming from different departments. In turn, this allows for overall, enhanced decision-making. Business Intelligence software represents a variety of methodologies, technologies, and software applications and tools to organize and analyze a businesses' data, and it is an important part of a business’ strategic planning process and consequent deployment of the organization’s resources.

The types of tools included in a business intelligence software package almost always consists of tools for spreadsheets, operational dashboards, reporting, search, analytics processing, content viewer, and even other tools associated with enterprise resource planning. The software can cull data from numerous operational systems, such as finance and sales. This information is then integrated and presented in easily understood formats (graphs, reports, charts).

Employees feel empowered with this manageable data, particularly since business intelligence software is designed with the capability to integrate tools and applications for specific verticals which may range from retail to legal, to healthcare, food and beverage, or education.

In the beginning, Business Intelligence Software was designed for large enterprises. As the software evolved, smaller sized businesses began to wonder if they, too, could benefit from it. Right now, the answer really depends on how data-intense a business is and how much does real-time information impact the day to day operations of the business. In other words, is there profit to be gained by combining the data from each department?  Are there questions which cannot be answered in time to make the best decision because the data has not been compiled and properly analyzed? If the answer to either of those two questions is yes –then the business can clearly benefit from business intelligence software.

Written by :

Amy Cruz