The Value of Business Intelligence

Business intelligence (BI) applications are able to develop an understanding of building a business case for the value of information. There are a number of Business Intelligence (BI) analytics that provide business value. Selecting and integrating these analytic functions depend on the ability to build an underlying information infrastructure to support the applications, as well as the ability to configure reporting and visualization of the discovered knowledge. A process of transforming data into a strategic resource involves applying new technology to data, and also understanding and building the business case. The chapter discusses different uses of data and the contexts of each use as it pertains to the exploitation of information. These can break into two areas: operational data use and strategic use. These both are valuable, and without the operational use of information, a business could not survive. But it is up to the information consumer to determine the extent of the value to be derived from the strategic use of information as well as what strategic uses of importance are.