Business intelligence (BI) is a powerful tool that helps companies make sense of their data and make informed decisions. It is composed of three main components: data warehousing, business analysis, and business performance management. The data warehouse is the central repository where data from various sources is stored. This is done to avoid frequent connections to source systems that can put production systems at risk of not responding or having poor performance.
The quality of the data stored in the staging is usually low, so it needs to be cleaned in later stages. Staging is used as a temporary environment, so the data is regularly deleted once it has been successfully transferred to the next stage. Data storage in the data warehouse or data markets uses different modeling approaches, such as the star schema. This allows companies to maintain the history of the data, but it comes at a cost as the volume of data increases.
To analyze all the data sources, ETL processes are used to extract, transform, and load the data into a central repository. Business analysis involves skills, technologies, and practices to explore and investigate past data to obtain information and promote business planning. It helps companies identify trends and patterns in their data that can be used to make better decisions. Power BI Desktop is recommended for developing a Power BI solution as it directly uses Power Query to connect to data sources and clean and transform the data. Business performance management tools help companies accelerate their decision-making process and positively boost their revenues. These tools provide insights into how well a company is performing against its goals and objectives.
They also help identify areas for improvement and provide recommendations on how to optimize operations. The three components of a business intelligence system are essential for any company that wants to make informed decisions based on their data. By understanding how each component works together, companies can unlock the power of business intelligence and gain a competitive edge.
