Business intelligence tools (BI)
Business intelligence is moving rapidly from a back office IT discipline to something every employee will need to use as part their daily routine. Advances like intuitive new interfaces and natural language querying are making these once complex suites every man tools. PC Labs tests and compares the top players.
BI encompasses a fair amount of tools and processes that may not be standardized or that can be vague or nebulous. Various types of software now offer some form of analytics which can feed into a businesses’ specific needs. Whether it is user metrics, defining and anticipating trends, as well as predicting outcomes all fall under the umbrella definition of business intelligence. In short, activities that help businesses turn raw information into actionable knowledge can be tagged as BI. Now that businesses are generating more data than ever, it’s become more of a challenge to harness that data into actionable BI to increase profits and remain ahead of their competition.