Big data, analytics, and business intelligence are no longer buzzwords or fancy jargons used by industry gurus. They have become necessities that help to create distinct competitive advantages for companies.
What is Business Intelligence?
BI refers to a group of processes and technologies that compile raw data from various sources to convert it into meaningful insights in the form of reports, graphs, and charts. The aim is to filter relevant data and convert it to a consumable format to create actionable business knowledge.
Business intelligence can be used by management to make strategic or operational decisions because it gives them access to historical data in the form of reports, graphs and charts, so they can make fact-based decisions.
More than 95% companies feel the need to manage unstructured data, while more than 40% say that they feel this need frequently, according to a SharesPost survey published in 2019. BI can be helpful in solving that problem.
The Growing Importance of Data Centers
How many bytes of data is being created every day? The answer is an astonishing 2.5 quintillion (a quintillion has 18 zeros!), says an article published by TheNextTech. This pace is only going to accelerate, with increased device penetration of everyday life and the growth of IoT (Internet of Things).
Realizing the power of BI, corporate titans have invested heavily into building data center infrastructure where they can track millions of matrices and generate thousands of reports every day. This is overkill for most companies. Such companies turn to providers of colocation services, but with a focus on software used by them to facilitate BI.
Data center software must make insights quickly, while also making them easy to understand and accessible with dashboards and reports that come preconfigured with the most useful KPIs and metrics, while allowing customizations, say experts at Sunbird. Such software can dramatically lower costs, making data center services even more feasible for companies.
Making an Informed Decision
The overall BI market is expected to reach almost $27 billion by 2021, representing a growth rate of 9.5% compounded annually from 2016, according to a report published by MarketsandMarkets. While BI converts business data into useful insights, there are several advantages that companies need to consider when investing in this arena.
- Higher productivity. BI tools allow businesses to generate reports within a few clicks, saving time and resources. Companies can also use data to identify the most time-consuming tasks and make decisions to boost employee productivity.
- Better visibility. With BI, businesses benefit from better visibility into processes and can identify processes that require improving. Companies can get an overall view of the organizations and have a better understanding of where they can improve efficiency.
- Democratizes data. With powerful tools, data analytics is no longer restricted to tech-savvy personnel. Anyone can access reports for decision making, irrespective of how small or big its impact.
Business intelligence strips data of all the complexities and automates analytics and report generation, while also making predictive analysis, benchmarking, and modeling highly cost effective.
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