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Let’s start with the basics: business intelligence (BI) is about getting usable intelligence from data. It’s been around for a while. Using BI, you can provide the right information to the right people at the right time and through the right channels. Informed decision making leads to competitive advantage.
In almost every organization, information is available in abundance. Structured data accumulates over the years thanks to the variety of operational information systems that produce it. Traditional models of operations might not be able to fully utilize the new opportunities presented by this abundance of information. BI systems, created to make sense of all the data, can organize, analyze, store, and retrieve a huge amount of information. This lets us work on new, agile organizational models that are more adaptable to constant change, which, in turn, helps us beat the competition and discover new business opportunities.