What Are the Differences Between Business Intelligence and Business Analysis?

A lot is being made about running smarter businesses. Many businesses are looking to their data to try and work out how to build a better business. Two terms you typically hear during this conversation are business intelligence and business analysis. Today, we will take a look at the two terms, decipher their meaning, how they are different from one another, and how they can help you determine the resources a business needs to improve itself.

In order to get the most out of your data, you have to have data collection platforms in place that will allow you to analyze data that is relevant. You see, your organization has a lot of data that, if it’s not stored properly, could be useful but isn’t helping at all. The data warehouse is basically a repository used to allow data from disparate storage systems to be analyzed properly. For example, if you have marketing information you want to analyze with relevant sales information, you need to have a place where all the data can be read from.

BI vs. BA
The easiest way to explain the difference between business intelligence and business analysis is: business intelligence is a noun. It is a system of congregating and analyzing data. Business analysis on the other hand is more of a verb that represents the act of analyzing data to identify business problems and finding solutions for those problems. Both require significant data sets to be effective, but they hold two completely separate functions.

Business Intelligence
A business intelligence strategy is one that seeks to analyze the business as it stands. Learning more about your business can have a lot of benefits, but for the business intelligence professional, their sole job is to analyze the data to find out answers about how the business has been functioning over certain periods of time to identify where alterations can be made to improve the business. BI’s value is in the process of delivering the information needed for administrators to make data-driven decisions.

Business Analysis
Business analysts are tasked with actively enabling the change that needs to be made within an organization by defining gaps in production and by presenting solutions. They take the data that has been provided by the BI system and try to find solutions to the business’ problems. Sometimes they utilize other strategies using the collected data to try and predict the market for a product or service and the effect decisions would have on operations.

Data-Driven Decisions
The increase in organizational use of BI and BA suggests that more companies than ever are looking to their data to take the guesswork out of how their business is performing. Using BI strategies, they can compare data from multiple departments to get a clear picture of just how their business is working. Then with BA they can plan a corrective course, bring in new solutions, or stay on the same trajectory if the data says so.

If you are interested in getting started using your data to your organization’s benefit, call the IT professionals at JS Business Solutions today to discuss how they can help you warehouse your data and get you the analysis software you need to start running a smarter business. Call us today at (781) 715-1900 to learn more.