The Five Stages of Business Intelligence (BI)

Venkat Obillaneni

Cloud Data Engineer at Aezion, Inc. | + posts

Venkat Obillaneni is Aezion Cloud Data Engineer and Data Practice Lead.

Did you know that the global business intelligence market is estimated to be worth over $29 billion in 2021? The industry shows no sign of slowing down either, as the global business intelligence adoption rate is estimated to be around 26 percent. Plus, experts are predicting that the global business intelligence market will be worth over $54 billion by 2028. With massive numbers like these, it’s clear that BI has earned a huge place in the modern business world.

This article will delve into business intelligence, highlighting how it can enable business operations to make better data-driven decisions. Read on to discover more about business intelligence and its five key stages.

What Is Business Intelligence?

The term business intelligence, or BI, refers to a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into useful information. Essentially, BI is the process of collecting, storing, and analyzing the data produced by a business operation. In addition, BI combines business analytics, data mining, data visualization, data tools, and infrastructure. Companies often use BI to make more data-driven decisions to enhance business operations.

Understanding the Five Key Stages of Business Intelligence

Business intelligence tools ingest business data and present it in a user-friendly way through reports, dashboards, charts, and graphs. To better understand how business intelligence works and how it enables companies to make more data-driven decisions, let’s delve into the five key stages of business intelligence.

Stage 1: Data Sourcing and Staging for BI

The first stage is data sourcing and staging, as BI is centered around extracting information from multiple sources of data throughout your organization. The key to data sourcing and staging is obtaining and transforming information from text documents, spreadsheets, photographs, audio and video recordings, tables, web pages, and more into structured, indexable and searchable electronic form.

Stage 2: Data Analysis

The second stage is data analysis. During this stage, useful knowledge is synthesized from collections of data. Essentially, data analysis is about estimating current trends, integrating and summarizing disparate information, validating models of understanding, and predicting missing information. Data analysis is also commonly referred to as data mining or knowledge discovery.

Stage 3: Situation Awareness and Alignment for BI

The third stage is all about situation awareness and alignment. During this stage, irrelevant information is filtered out. The remaining information is then set in the context of the business operation, its environment and the questions that are being asked. The process of weeding out irrelevant information and alignment of the resulting information is essential to effective data-driven decision-making.

Stage 4: BI Options Assessment

The fourth stage is facilitating ideation. During this stage, data analysts partner with decision-makers to discover data features that highlight relevant business conditions, plausible actions and potential outcomes. In addition, the options assessment phase helps business operations weigh current and future risks and take into consideration the cost or benefits of taking certain actions.

Stage 5: BI and Decision Support

The fifth and final stage is decision support. During this stage, BI works to evaluate and directly support proposed decisions. Decision support includes results tracking and identification of opportunities, costs, risks, benefits, return on investment, and proactive insights on events such as market changes, staff performance, and more. The goal is to help business managers and leaders make better data-driven decisions to improve sales, increase customer satisfaction, or boost staff morale and performance.

Let Aezion Help You With Your Business Intelligence Needs

At Aezion, our dedicated team of technical professionals can handle all of your data management and business intelligence needs. Our experts can assist with BI architecture, data collection, transformation, real-time visualization, and reporting. If you’re ready to discover more about how Aezion can help elevate your company through data-driven innovation, contact us today.

Venkat Obillaneni

Cloud Data Engineer at Aezion, Inc. | + posts

Venkat Obillaneni is Aezion Cloud Data Engineer and Data Practice Lead.

Blog