Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) is a technology of extracting information, gathering and presenting knowledge, using a variety of hardware and software technologies, to help executives and business owners make decisions. Such an approach enables organisations to transform data into structured information.

BI Characteristics

At the core of BI technology is the organised analysis of the end-user. BI generates an iterative process of a typical business user behaviour. Through mathematical modeling, it forms conclusions that effectively change the company in a positive way. BI has a wide range of users in the enterprise, including executives and analysts.

Business intelligence product classification

Today the categories of BI products include:

• Business intelligence tools;
• Business intelligence applications.

BI tools, in turn, are divided into:

• query and report generators;
• developed BI-tools,
• tools of online analytical processing (OLAP);
• enterprise BI suites ( EBIS);
• BI platforms.

The main part of the BI-tools is divided into corporate sets and platforms. Tools for generating queries and reports are largely absorbed and replaced by corporate BI-sets. Multidimensional OLAP-mechanisms or servers, as well as relational OLAP-mechanisms are tools and infrastructure for BI-platforms. Most of these digital systems are exploited by end users for accessing, analyzing and generating reports on data. App developers use these platforms to create and deploy applications that are not considered as BI tools.