Business Intelligence: History, Definition and Uses

 

 

           Photo Credit:  Intellspot 

                           

Business Intelligence was first used in 1865 by Richard Millar Devens in the “Cyclopædia of Commercial and Business Anecdotes”. This word was used on describing a banker, Sir Henry Furnese, who profited from information by gathering and acting on it before his competition¹.

Business Intelligence is defined as the use of technology to gather and analyze data and translate this into a useful information. Raw data are being analyzed and generated as graphs, charts and lines to see trends on product demands, income, inventory, expenses and many others¹.

Aside from businesses, Government Organization also use Business Intelligence applications to determine trends like climate patterns. The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAG-ASA) uses the climate information history from 1980 to present to draw the climate patterns especially the El Nino and La Nina phenomenon. The “Dopler Radar” positioned in various provinces and “HIMAWARI 8/9”, a geo-satellite of Japan Meteorological Agency's (JMA), a Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) series, are our sources of climate and weather information². PAG-ASA draw climate and weather forecasts on day-to-day information gathered by these radars and satellite.

Business Intelligence is one of the advancements in technology for efficient data organization and analysis, generating understandable visualization of analyzed data.

 

 References: (1) A Brief History of Business Intelligence - DATAVERSITY

                       (2) PAGASA (dost.gov.ph)