Business Intelligence – Not what most think it is!

Even today, Business Intelligence is one of those very popular and least understood terms.
I have always had my reservations on the very definition of Business Intelligence as term. Infact, since the day I jumped into the thick of how it has been defined, understood and implemented (as if it is a program or project!), I found it to be extremely limiting and misguided.
Recently, I saw a blog post in a popular Information Management portal where the current evolving definition of Business Intelligence was posted; I simply could not resist expressing my views to a broader audience. Here is the definition that I saw:
“A set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making”.
Even the Wikipedia defines BI as –“Business Intelligence (BI) refers to skills, processes, technologies, applications and practices used to support decision making”
If you closely look at these two definitions, they have the following serious limitations:
1. It’s not defined in a Business language
When you look closer it seems to be plausibly good definition for Information Supply Chain rather than Business Intelligence, although information supply chain is a critical and integral part. Also, we need to define the term “Business Intelligence” and not Business and Intelligence as two independent definitions
2. It does not contain a Business purpose
What should a business do better in business terms that is clearly measurable and can be benchmarked over the long term? Let me borrow the definition of BUSINESS from Wikipedia to explain this better – it says business is a legally recognized organization designed to provide products and services to consumers for a profit. The purpose thus should be on providing these in ways that increases return and wealth of owners.
3. It seems to capture information life cycle only
Behaviours and people are the core to being intelligent. It does not specifically highlight if organization has the motivation to exploit the information and act on it. It also does not capture if organizations know what to measure and analyse to run the business better.
4. The word “Decision–making” used in the definition can apply to life in general and not Business in particular
Here is an alternative definition for Business Intelligence Iam proposing to the broader business community.
According to me, Business Intelligence is “An organization’s motivation and ability to effectively create and use information to execute business activities that deliver higher and sustainable profitability compared to competition”
What does this definition imply?
1. Sense of Urgency to Succeed – “Motivation”
2. Action – “Execute business activities that deliver”
3. Focus on clues that matter – “ability to effectively create and use information”
4. Customer-centric and Ethical - “Higher and sustainable profitability”
5. Measurable and Benchmark able – “compared to competition”
I welcome your thoughts and suggestions to improve the definition.