Turning unruly data into business intelligence requires specialised tools that analyse, drill down or mine data to help users make informed decisions and ensure an organisation is more efficient and more competitive.

If information is the corporate lifeblood then you need to know how healthy you are and compare your vital signs with your competitors. If you can’t put your finger on the data you need when you need it, you risk losing business and the confidence of your customers.

Business Intelligence systems are usually associated with Data Warehouses, essentially database repositories designed to support an organisation’s decision making. Data Warehouses are batch updated and can contain enormous amounts of information, typically including customer transactional history.

Once all the pieces are in place, including a standardised infrastructure, databases that talk to each other, real-time document conversion and storage and management software, you begin to create what may be described as a ‘corporate memory’. Business intelligence or data mining tools are used to dig through this information revealing patterns and relationships within the business activity and history. Management reports based on this kind of analysis can help organisations with their strategic and competitive positioning. The benefits may include identifying who the best and worst customers are, which products make the most or least profits, fine-tuning of marketing or pricing policies, the retention of customers and predicting market trends.

Business-intelligence tools can provide significant value, but measuring their return on investment still presents a challenge as it can take time to see the real world benefits. Some business intelligence packages have a reputation for being complex and difficult to use, so training could be a critical factor in getting people up to speed with these tools.

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