Are you BI-Curious? A look at business intelligence (Infographic)

With the mountainous wastelands of data that dot the landscape of today’s business, we’re sure glad that business intelligence exists.  To those familiar with business intelligence, it’s tools such as Domo, Bime, GoodData, and Jaspersoft. For the uninitiated, it’s just another buzzword. Really though, it’s not difficult to understand: think of it as a dashboard of all your key business metrics all in a neat operations center-like screen.

So what makes business intelligence special? Humans can perform the incredible when interpreting the right data, as long as it’s presented in a useful way.

A recent infographic courtesy of DSquared Media calls out some interesting facts: Today, 86% of people will use some form of technology while shopping, or to assist in shopping. Around 49% of people used two pieces of technology while shopping in 2010. When it comes to business intelligence, 40% of companies believe they are better than 50% of their competitors, while less than 10% have no idea where they stand.

Business intelligence has even made its way into mainstream culture — decisions reached in the movie Moneyball were the result of BI. Not everything is fun and games though; initiating business intelligence before a corporate disaster will cost significantly less money and reduce a lot of stress on key players and those who publicly represent the company. However, most companies do not implement this method until after a disaster occurs, possibly causing significant damage to their reputation and costing them more than they ever planned to spend.

Are you already using business intelligence for your own shop? Thinking of doing so? The comments are yours.

Brian Wallace is the President of NowSourcing, a social media firm specializing in infographic design, development, and content marketing promotion. 

Infographic via DSquared Media (Click image to enlarge)