As the big data analytics market is all set to reach $103 billion by 2023, it is important to understand the differences between the data-based concepts involved in data analysis. Are you unsure of the differences between business intelligence vs business analytics? You’re not alone. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss seven key differences between business intelligence vs business analytics. By understanding the distinctions between these two concepts, you’ll be better equipped to choose the right tool for your needs. Dive into the details of business intelligence vs business analytics to back your business processes using big data.
Business Intelligence Vs Business Analytics- The Key Concepts
Before getting into the differences between business intelligence vs business analytics, let’s take a look at the basics of the two.
Business intelligence
Business intelligence (BI) is a technology-driven process for collecting, analyzing, and presenting data to help businesses make better decisions. The goal of BI is to give organizations a deeper understanding of their customers, their operations, and the markets they operate in. BI can be used to identify new business opportunities, track and optimize marketing campaigns, understand customer behavior and improve decision-making at all levels of an organization.
While the term “business intelligence” is relatively new, the concept has been around for centuries. Early forms of BI were used by military commanders to gather information about enemy forces and terrain. Today, BI has evolved into a complex process that combines data mining, statistical analysis, and machine learning to give businesses a competitive edge.
Business Analytics
What is business analytics? Business analytics is the practice of iteratively exploring data sets to reveal trends, patterns, and relationships that can be used to improve business decision-making. Business analytics uncover insights that can lead to improvements in areas such as marketing, product development, operations, and customer service.
Although business analytics typically relies on data-driven methods such as statistical modeling, machine learning, and text mining, it also includes more qualitative approaches such as surveys and interviews. By combining multiple data sources and analytical techniques, business analytics can provide a comprehensive view of an organization’s performance.
The Role of Business Intelligence and Data Analytics at Ascend Analytics
Now that we understand what is business analytics, let’s find out how Ascend Analytics leverages data to generate actionable insight. At Ascend Analytics, we aim to provide smart data solutions by leveraging business intelligence and business analytics. Both business intelligence and business analytics rely on data to generate analytical insights for organizations. We unleash the power of data through modern-day analytics and translate data into actionable insights through our world-class data architecture.
Ascend Analytics Clients
Here’s a list of some of our valuable clients that leverage our actionable insights to drive their data-based businesses.
- Applebee’s
- Lettus Kitchens
- Sadapay
- Triple Tree
- uLesson
With the vast range of clients that belong to different sectors including education, FMCG, F&B, fintech, and B2B domains, we provide data-based insights to every field.
Business Intelligence Vs Business Analytics- The 7 Key Differences
With the ever-increasing popularity of business intelligence and analytics tools in today’s data-driven business realm, it is important to know the difference between the two to choose the right tools. Business intelligence vs business analytics- what are the key differences? Let’s find out.
1. Time Taken Into Consideration
Business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) are both essential tools for driving decision-making in any organization. At a high level, BI takes current and future scenarios into consideration, whereas BA relies on historical data to drive results. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses that need to be considered when choosing the right tool for the job.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Utilizing Past and Future Data
- Business intelligence is typically better at providing a broad overview of an organization’s performance. It can help identify trends and patterns that may not be immediately obvious from looking at historical data. However, BI can sometimes suffer from “paralysis by analysis” – with so much data available, it can be difficult to identify the most important factors to focus on.
- Business analytics, on the other hand, is more focused on finding actionable insights from past data. This approach can sometimes miss out on potential opportunities that haven’t happened yet, but it’s typically faster and easier to implement than BI.
Your Go-To Approach?
Ultimately, the best approach depends on the specific needs of the organization and the decision-makers involved.
2. The Usage
Business intelligence (BI) runs business operations. It helps managers track key performance indicators (KPIs), understand trends, and make better decisions. BI platforms collect data from multiple sources, including databases, spreadsheets, and ERP systems. They then transform this data into insights that can be used to improve operational efficiency. At Ascend Analytics, we utilize business intelligence to take a competitive approach that facilitates decision-making. We analyze millions of data points to generate insightful reports.
Business analytics (BA), on the other hand, changes and improves business operations. BA begins with data mining and modeling to identify problems and potential opportunities. It then uses predictive analytics to forecast what might happen in the future. Finally, BA provides decision-makers with recommendations on how to improve the business. In short, BA helps businesses not only run better but also change and improve over time. Ascend Analytics’ Business Analytics and Consulting Services provide information about the current trends.
3. End-Users
Business intelligence tools present data in a way that is easy for non-technical users to understand. This can be achieved through the use of charts, graphs, and other visual aids. The goal of business intelligence is to help users make informed decisions by giving them a clear picture of what is happening within their organization.
Whereas business analytics tools are designed for use by experts. These tools allow users to dive deep into data sets to uncover trends and patterns. The goal of business analytics is to help users make better decisions by providing them with insights that would not be apparent from a surface-level analysis.
4. Statistical Approaches
Business intelligence (BI) uses statistical and predictive analysis to identify current trends, whereas business analytics (BA) relies on huge amounts of data to be retrieved, analyzed, and published. The main difference between the two is that BI can help organizations make better decisions by understanding the past performance and predicting future outcomes, while BA cannot control the data or the analysis.
As a result, BI is more often used to guide strategic decision-making, while BA is more commonly used to support operational decision-making.
5. Reporting Styles
Business intelligence generates easy-to-understand reports based on existing data. This information can be used to make informed decisions about future courses of action. Business analytics, on the other hand, takes a more complex reporting approach that involves statistical analysis. This approach is used to identify trends and patterns in data to make predictions about future outcomes.
While business intelligence can provide valuable insights, business analytics is typically considered to be a more powerful tool for decision-making.
6. Data Application
Another point that comes to the user’s mind when thinking about business intelligence vs data analytics is the application of each type. Thanks to the proliferation of data in recent years, businesses now have more information at their disposal than ever before. However, simply having data is not enough – it is also important to know how to make use of it.
BI tools help businesses make sense of structured data sets, such as financial reports or customer purchase histories. Business analytics, on the other hand, deals with semi-structured and unstructured data, such as social media posts or website clickstreams.
7. Integrated Tools
Business intelligence (BI) refers to the set of tools and techniques used to collect, store, analyze and present data in a way that helps businesses make better decisions. BI tools include real-time and mapping analysis, while business analytics tools integrate SWOT analysis, predictive modeling, and requirement analysis.
Both BI and business analytics are essential for businesses to understand their data and make informed decisions. However, business analytics goes a step further by providing insights that can help businesses improve their performance. Business analytics can be used to identify trends, optimize processes and predict future outcomes. As such, it is an increasingly important tool for businesses of all sizes.
Generate Actionable Insights with Ascend Analytics
How does business intelligence vs data analytics work at Ascend Analytics? It’s time you partner with Ascend Analytics to unleash your data potential.
Ascend Analytics’ Business Analytics Services
- The business analytics and consulting services automate reporting and reduce the requirement of manual data cleansing and compilation.
- Unlike other BA tools that generate data analytics for technical experts, we create reports that are accessible to non-technical staff as well.
- Organizations can boost their conversation rate by partnering with Ascend Analytics as we identify the customer pain points and enable organizations to improve their processes accordingly.
- By identifying internal and external problems, we minimize revenue losses.
Ascend Analytics Business Intelligence Services
- Ascend Analytics offers a full range of business intelligence services to help clients make better data-driven decisions. Our services include data mining, data analysis, data visualization, and reporting.
- We also offer custom solutions tailored to our client’s specific needs. Our team of experienced analysts has a deep understanding of the latest analytical methods and tools, and we are always up-to-date on the latest industry trends.
- We pride ourselves on providing high-quality, actionable insights that help our clients move their businesses forward.
Conclusion
If you are still unsure of the differences between Business intelligence vs business analytics or which one is right for your business, don’t worry. Ascend Analytics can help you determine what type of data-driven decision-making will work best for your organization. We are experts in both BI and analytics and have helped numerous businesses harness the power of their data to drive real results. Contact us today at info@ascendanalytics.co.