One term, three opinions
Business Intelligence, along with Big Data, the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence, is one of the biggest buzzwords in the context of digital technologies. Experts agree that Business Intelligence, or BI for short, is one of the central answers to the challenges facing businesses in the future – even though the term itself is understood and applied in very different ways. Not everyone who talks about Business Intelligence means the same thing, which is reason enough to dig a little deeper.
The standard German reference work on economics, the Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon, defines Business Intelligence as "an umbrella term for IT-based access to information and the IT-based analysis and processing of that information". The aim of this process, it explains, is to use existing knowledge to generate new, relevant and action-oriented knowledge that supports decision-making in business management.
So much for the scientific definition. But what do the practitioners say? We asked three experts who should know:
Mario Zillmann (l.) is a partner at the Lünendonk & Hossenfelder GmbH management consultancy, one of the leading market research and consulting firms for B2B services. As an analyst and consultant, he concerns himself with the IT trends and developments with which businesses are being confronted. Jens Ropers (r.), a partner at CA controller akademie, knows what these trends mean for businesses in practice every day. He advises businesses on developing qualification strategies as part of digital transformation. Qualification measures relating to data-driven applications are also one of the priorities for Lars Böhle (m.). The Chief Training & Consulting Officer at Corporate Planning develops solution concepts and accompanies the introduction of BI and corporate performance management solutions with training courses.
What is Business Intelligence?
Zillmann: For me, Business Intelligence is the sum of technologies, methods and strategies for managing businesses and organisations by KPIs. BI tools normally consist of four components: consolidation, reporting, analysis, and dashboarding or visualisation.
Ropers: If "intelligence" translates as information, knowledge and understanding, BI helps to generate information we use for managing the business.
Böhle: Intelligence basically means understanding one's own business model. What are the drivers that will ensure the economic success of the business in future?
What is the intent and purpose of BI?
Zillmann: With BI, all the relevant KPIs are delivered in high quality, meaningfulness and validity to the management virtually at the touch of a button. This is essential, considering that the amount of data is growing all the time, as are the complexity and volatility of the global economy.
Ropers: BI has one purpose only, and that is for making decisions!
Böhle: It's about flexibility in planning – making it understandable, efficient and integrated. A feature of value drivers is that they are determining factors for success or failure.
What is the best way of implementing Business Intelligence?
Zillmann: To get as realistic a reflection of reality as possible, you need a central location where all the information in a business converges – the single point of truth. Those who are looking to make their reporting and analyses a lot faster count on self-service BI. Excel is no longer up to tackling these challenges.
Ropers: First, you have to understand the systematics of your company's business model so that the relevant management information can then be identified. The second step is compiling, exploiting and analysing the required data and storing it as a single source of truth.
Böhle: Only a professional planning solution – not Excel – is capable of analysing those drivers and their effect on the liquidity and profitability of the business in an understandable, efficient and integrated manner and of providing the flexibility for taking countermeasures.
The bottom line: As different as their approaches to the term Business Intelligence may be, the three experts agree on one thing: BI plays a part in increasing the quality and the speed of decisions in businesses. In complex and volatile market environments and in the face of growing data sets, these are two factors that are critical for success.
