Business intelligence (BI)
A broad context for collecting, organizing, reporting on, and analyzing business data.
Operations glossary
Business intelligence helps people examine business information.
This definition explains the term, how it relates to data analytics and KPIs, and why it does not tell a particular business what to do.
Business intelligence (BI) is a set of methods and technologies for collecting, organizing, reporting on, and analyzing business data so people can examine information about a business. Read the EDUCAUSE definition.
Three related terms
These labels describe context. They do not make a business decision.
They can appear in the same conversation, but each names a different part of how people talk about business information.
Data analytics
Examining data to describe patterns, context, or questions. It is related to BI, but the label does not select a method or conclusion.
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
Measures a business chooses to monitor. The term itself does not decide which measure matters or what action should follow.
Why the distinction matters
BI can organize information. It does not decide the next move.
The important boundary
A glossary names the context. It does not produce an answer.
Teams can use related terms while working with different data, definitions, systems, controls, reviewers, business questions, and decisions. The term alone cannot make data complete or determine what a business should do.
Related, not interchangeable
BI and analytics can be discussed together without becoming a prediction.
EDUCAUSE describes BI as methods and technologies that collect, store, report, and analyze business data. The Australian Government Architecture describes BI analytics as collecting, processing, and analyzing data to gain insights and inform decisions. Those sources define a capability; they do not validate a data set, select a KPI, or recommend an action for a particular business.
A source note
Information and a decision are not the same thing.
Business intelligence can describe information. The people responsible for a decision still need context.
Keep the term and the conclusion separate.
IBM distinguishes descriptive BI from more forward-looking or prescriptive analytical approaches and notes that BI does not itself tell users what to do or what will happen. This glossary uses that distinction only to clarify vocabulary. It does not analyze a business’s data or supply a conclusion.
Glossary boundary: This page does not provide a dashboard, report, data analysis, KPI recommendation, prediction, or business decision.
What this glossary does not decide
This educational definition does not collect, ingest, connect to, clean, combine, process, analyze, model, calculate, score, interpret, visualize, report on, query, compare, or validate a business’s data; select metrics, KPIs, systems, dashboards, reports, sources, thresholds, actions, plans, prices, forecasts, suppliers, inventory, production, or customer decisions; determine data completeness, accuracy, quality, relevance, privacy, security, compliance, financial condition, profitability, demand, capacity, cost, risk, performance, outcome, or readiness; generate insight, recommendation, forecast, report, dashboard, answer, trend, anomaly, or action plan; or provide financial, accounting, tax, legal, regulatory, privacy, security, data-governance, procurement, quality, food-safety, personnel, marketing, sales, inventory, supply-chain, retailer, or operational advice.
Source note
References for the terminology
These sources support the language on this page. They are not a substitute for a business’s own qualified reviewers, data, records, or applicable authorities.
Building commercial workflows with CPG design partners
Help shape a clearer way to keep product context and operating handoffs connected.
A working prototype validated Guidance’s core operating model. The commercial rebuild is translating that proof into production-ready workflows with CPG design partners.
Apply as a Design Partner →