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What Should Project Managers Know About Business Intelligence (BI)?

Business intelligence, or BI, encompasses different applications, tools, and methods that allow gathering important information. The data is collected from both internal and external sources. This information is presented to the decision-makers in the form of reports, charts, and dashboards. The information is generally used for different purposes including market segmentation, customer profiling, product profitability, distribution analysis, and much more.

Here we will shed light on what is BI, and it can help project managers can make better decisions.

What is BI?

Business intelligence (BI) makes use of software to transform raw data into information that can help in tactical and strategic decision making. BI tools analyze data sets and present the findings of the analysis in the form of dashboards, summaries, reports, maps, charts, and graphs. In this way, users get detailed knowledge about the business state and use the information for making informed decisions.

More specifically, BI involves using applications, technologies, and practices for the integration, collection, presentation, and analysis of business information. The main objective of BI is to help users in making improved decisions.

Benefits of BI for Project Managers

Project managers can greatly benefit from the use of BI reports. They can make more informed decisions regarding allocation of resources. It accelerates the decision-making process and leads to improved operational efficiency and profitability for the organization.

BI reports can also help project managers to know about the trends and identify problems. In this way, they can take proactive steps to minimize the impact of adverse events. Other benefits of BI reports for project managers include the following

• Optimize internal business process
• Drive new revenues
• Increase operational efficiency
• Save costs
• Spot issues
• Identify trends

BI tools were initially used by the IT professionals and data analysts for generating queries. However, today companies are using the tools for different purposes. From finance to healthcare to hospitality industries, BI tools are increasingly being used for improved decision making.

Big data analysis can be used with BI tools for more robust decision making. A lot of BI vendors have introduced tools that help in big data analysis. An example is the SAP connectors that are offered for Business Objects and SAP BI.

Conclusion

Businesses today are increasingly making use of BI for improved decision making. Project managers can also benefit from adopting BI tools to improve their forecasts and estimates. Increasing number of businesses are replacing the traditional waterfall development with Agile BI approaches. This results in more refined decision making and provides flexibility in modifying the plans according to the demand.

Project managers can complement BI tools by using online task management software. The software allows better collaboration between the team members. Moreover, the work management software allows monitoring of the employee performance and rescheduling the tasks according to new information obtained through BI analysis.