Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes. BI technologies give historical, current, and predictive views of business operations.
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History or background
In a 1958 article, IBM researcher Hans Peter Luhn used the term business intelligence. He defined intelligence as: "the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal."
Business intelligence as it is understood today is said to have evolved from the decision support systems which began in the 1960s and developed throughout the mid-80s. DSS originated in the computer-aided models created to assist with decision making and planning. From DSS, data warehouses, Executive Information Systems, OLAP and business intelligence came into focus beginning in the late 80s.
In 1989 Howard Dresner (later a Gartner Group analyst) proposed "business intelligence" as an umbrella term to describe "concepts and methods to improve business decision making by using fact-based support systems." It was not until the late 1990s that this usage was widespread.
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Main usage and functionalities of BI
BI has provided a roadmap to deliver solutions for business analysis which includes data models, metadata and analytical applications. By having this roadmap, superior business value through improved return on investment (ROI), time value by enabling fast solution delivery, and technical value through open database enablement can be delivered. Time savings, single version of truth, better strategies, better tactics and decisions are among