Cape Town, 19 Mar 2014
The concepts of business intelligence and predictive analytics have gripped businesses for as long as these concepts existed. While these BI concepts are usually shrouded in mystery and ambiguity, smart companies are well-informed about them, mostly thanks to BI specialists.
So where does business intelligence (BI) end and where does predictive analytics begin? Effective Intelligence CEO Julian Ardagh expressed his views, stating: "My view is that the current view of distinctly separate functions will merge in the future. At Effective Intelligence, we use the terms 'analytical data intelligence' to describe the concepts and strategy, and 'BI analytics' to describe all aspects of operationalising BI."
Ardagh added: "The most important thing, perhaps, is to not get bogged down by words and phrases, and instead to focus on the elements and processes within the world of business intelligence and analytics. Different people may have different understandings of BI and analytical intelligence; what matters is how they arrange these to suit their processes and goals."
The ultimate goal of BI analytics (BIA) is to support analytically optimised real-time decisioning. This makes perfect sense since data, information, intelligence, etc, is essentially a means to an end. The result we want is quicker, better decisions. Information, basically business intelligence, adds value if it is acted upon. For instance, the ability to make sense of big data via BI experts will amount to nothing if the company doesn't take appropriate action based on the information. Modern tools and techniques have made it possible for BI industry experts to focus on business analytics as an extension of BI, which is primarily related to statistics, prediction, and optimisation.
BIA outsourcing has been a growing trend over the past couple of years. Many companies have gained time-to-market and skills advantage through BIA outsourcing capabilities. The need for faster, better and more affordable BIA has certainly increased the importance of BIA outsourcing.
Analytical data intelligence forms an important part of business strategy for smart enterprises. While conventional analytical intelligence strategy was geared towards collecting, managing and reporting on data that can be understood, modern analytics, such as that practised by EI, utilises more powerful tools, techniques and infrastructure. This enables a strategy that is built on this ability to make better decisions much more quickly. Data sources that were previously considered unusable are now accessible.
Analytical data intelligence is essentially where intelligence strategies are shaped, while BIA is more of an operational level facet of BI. This is an exceedingly helpful explanation of the relationship between BI and predictive analytics. Anyone who wishes to benefit from a better understanding of BI would find Effective Intelligence's explanation and methods most useful.