Glossary

What is Business Intelligence (BI) and Business Analytics (BA)?

Business Intelligence (BI) represents a comprehensive strategy that integrates business analytics, data mining, data visualization and advanced data tools. The overarching goal of BI is to promote data-driven decisions at all levels of the company and to increase the efficiency of business processes. Business analytics (BA) describes the effective use of company data to accurately forecast future trends and results. This analytical approach includes advanced methods such as data mining, statistical analysis and the creation of well-founded forecasts.

It is important to differentiate between the two methods in order to strategically align the analysis of company data. In terms of the specific added value, a distinction is made between BI and BA to provide a clear focus: business intelligence generally focuses on past and present data and its interpretation in its questions and analyses: what was and why was something? Business analytics, on the other hand, expands this view to include the future developments of a company and places the data in a “forward-looking” context. The advantage of business analytics in contrast to business intelligence is therefore that it does not only answer past-related questions on the basis of company data. Predictive analytics can also foresee and control future developments.