Business Intelligence vs Business Analytics: Which Platform is Right for your Business?

Updated 26 Feb 2024
Published 26 Feb 2024
Satyam Chaturvedi 1203 Views
Business Intelligence vs Business Analytics

Do you own a business and experience a ton of data every day from daily operations or transactions?

Want to drive powerful insights from your existing data?

Remember these terms—business intelligence and business analytics—because both can significantly help you achieve the ultimate business transformation utilizing data.

But do you have a basic idea about BI and Business Analytics?

If not, then it would be better to understand its core concept to find out which one is best for your company and business.

It is with you and others who need clarification about business intelligence services (BI) vs. business analytics (BA). Understanding its importance, we have created an article for you and others who have similar thoughts and want to adopt any of it for their business.

While going through this article, you’ll know what BI and BA are and the difference between business intelligence and business analytics.

Let’s start with some basic definitions!

What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence is a technical process that collects, stores, and delivers actionable insights businesses can leverage for sustainable growth.

It represents data in a user-friendly view through reports, dashboards, info graphs, and charts.

It happens with the help of tools called Business Intelligence (BI) Tools like Power BI, Tableau, etc, which help users access different types of data such as historical and current, third-party, and in-house data.

Users analyze this information to get insights into the business performance.

Here, you might have a question:

How does Business Intelligence Work?

Descriptive analysis (analysis of historical and current data) is the secret behind business intelligence. It uses data from multiple sources, such as financial reports, financial surveys, ERP systems, CRMs, Operational Databases, Data Warehouses, and social media data.

The extracted information helps identify trends later and allows management to make informed decisions.

Idea Use Case of Business Intelligence:

Company ‘X’ was losing customers due to dissatisfaction with the services and products.

So, later, the management of ‘X’ leveraged Business Intelligence to find out how many customers were unhappy with the services and track down the points where issues occurred.

After making the changes, they prevented the loss of customers and improved the service quality.

If you are also experiencing the same issue, you can also leverage it for your business with the help of a custom software development company dealing in Business Intelligence solutions.

The critical functionality of Business Intelligence is forecasting, so if we go for its real-life use cases, then it is helpful in –

  • Sales forecasting
  • Customer Behavior Analysis
  • Improving Operational Efficiency
  • Financial Analysis
  • Marketing Analysis
  • Risk Management
  • Fraud detection and others.

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What is Business Analytics?

Business Analytics is a subset of Business Intelligence. It is used to interpret historical data to identify trends and involves statistical methods, data mining, predictive analysis, and machine learning.

  • Key methodologies involved in business analytics are:
  • Data Mining (sorting large amounts of data),
  • Aggregation (organizing data before analysis),
  • forecasting (analysis of historical data),
  • Predictive Modelling (information extraction from data sets), and
  • Data Visualization (creation of data’s virtual representation in the form of charts, tables, and graphs).

You might be interested in knowing how business analytics (BA) works.

It starts with data collection by setting the parameters to collect the relevant data. Once the datasets are created, they are processed with analytics software and tools to gain insights and reveal patterns.

It also includes uncovering the objective variable’s components via statistical methods. The next stage is to develop mathematical models to predict the outcomes.

Once it is done, optimization takes place to maximize the outcomes. The final stage is to make data-driven decisions and take actions based on them.

Ideal Use Case of Business Analytics:

Company ‘Y’ is generating good profit by leveraging Business Analytics. With BA’s help, they found a seasonal trend in sales volume at specific times.

So, they created the campaign based on the demographics and users’ preferences. It resulted in great revenue generation.

Business Analytics is helpful in multiple ways, such as:

  • Identifying Areas for Improvements
  • Business Process Optimization
  • Making Data-Driven Decisions
  • Future Outcome Prediction
  • Strategic Opportunity Identification
  • Business model design and more.

Read also: What is Business Intelligence & Why Your Business Needs It?

Difference Between Business Analytics and Business Intelligence

Now, you have complete, basic information about BI and BA. But still, we have not concluded, so it is crucial to determine the difference to clarify things.

#1. Business Intelligence Vs Business Analytics: Key Stats

  • The Business Intelligence software market’s revenue is projected to reach $27.36 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow to $34.16 billion by 2028.
  • As per Research & Markets – US and China are the largest mobile business intelligence markets.
  • The Analytics and BI market will be $18.5 billion by 2026.
  • By 2024, the average spending per employee is expected to reach USD $7.80.
  • The global predictive analytics (Business Analytics) market will be able to generate $22.1 billion by 2026.  
  • Analytics as a Service (AaaS) market value is estimated to reach $69 billion by 2028.
  • In 2023, the business analytics software market was valued at approximately $177 billion 2023 and is expected to triple by the end of this decade.
  • The mobile business intelligence market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 43% between 2021-2026.

#2. Business Intelligence Vs Business Analytics: Definition

Although we have covered the definition part in this blog earlier, in simple terms, it can be like this: Business Intelligence implementation refers to reporting historical data for monitoring business performance (Descriptive Analysis).

In contrast, Business Analytics refers to predicting future trends to make data-driven decisions (Predictive Analysis).

#3. Business Intelligence Vs Business Analytics:  Benefits

Benefits of Business Intelligence

  • Improved decision-making: BI helps companies identify bottlenecks using historical and current data.
  • Better Customer Services: BI generates insights about market trends and customer behavior that you can use to provide better customer service.
  • Reduced Complexity: BI tools help extract information from multiple data sources and reduce complexity.
  • Enhanced Productivity: BI helps automate tasks and improves access to crucial information.
  • Improved Operational Efficiency: BI tools extract the information by combining multiple data sources, improving operational efficiency.
  • Real-time Monitoring: BI helps generate real-time reports and dashboards for constant performance monitoring.

Benefits of Business Analytics

  • Predictive Capability: BA predicts future outcomes by leveraging predictive analysis abilities.
  • Process Optimization: Business Analytics focuses on process optimization and predicting future results.
  • Data Analysis: Business analytics tools help in data exploration, performing complex analysis, and result visualization.
  • Opportunity Identification: Using business analytics, you can identify new areas for business expansion. It helps in revealing unexplored segments.
  • Customer Segmentation: BA helps businesses segment their customers based on demographics, buying behavior, product offerings, and customer services.
  • Quality Control: Business analytics supports monitoring, defect detection, and product process optimization.

#4. Business Intelligence Vs. Business Analytics: Actionability

Business Intelligence (BI) insights are helpful for operational reporting and day-to-day decision-making processes. On the other hand, BA insights refer to strategic decision-making, guiding long-term planning, and resource allocation.

#5. Business Intelligence Vs. Business Analytics: Complexity

BI solutions are easy to implement, whereas Business Analytics is complex and requires analytical expertise.

#6. Business Intelligence Vs. Business Analytics: Purpose

Business intelligence (BI) monitors corporate performance, tracks key metrics, and creates regular reports. BA serves as a tool for strategic planning, identifying business opportunities, and streamlining company procedures.

#7. Business Intelligence Vs Business Analytics: Scope

BI uses internal data sources, transactional databases, and operational systems. Compared to it, BA involves integrating internal and external data sources such as social media and sensor-obtained data.

#8. Business Intelligence Vs Business Analytics: Ease of Use   

Business Intelligence is more user-friendly and requires less technical proficiency than BA platforms, which require data science expertise.

#9. Business Intelligence Vs. Business Analytics: Flexibility

Business Intelligence is more flexible than Business Analytics as it responds to changing business needs.

#10. Business Intelligence Vs. Business Analytics: Maturity

BI offers well-defined tools and methodologies and is mature compared to BA (a relatively new field and still developing).

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Choose the Right Platform for your Business: Business Intelligence or Business Analytics

Business Intelligence (BI) and Business Analytics (BA) are both beneficial and right in their place, but it depends on your requirements. So, let’s have a look at it.

  • It starts with business objectives. If you focus on performance monitoring, then a Business Intelligence platform like Power BI is right. However, if you focus on strategy and predicting future outcomes, Business Analytics is the best.
  • If you have structured data, then BI tools are beneficial. However, the Business Analytics Platform is the best if you have unstructured or semi-structured data and want to transform it into organized ones.
  • BI is the best solution if you need enterprise-wise reporting, including multiple departments and teams. However, if you are focused on some specific area(s) within an organization, adopt BA for it.
  • If you want to focus on data management, Business Intelligence tools are the best. On the other hand, Business Analytics is the best approach for data analysis.

The Final Thoughts

Business intelligence and business analytics are both fantastic for business growth. Both are important and offer multiple benefits, so deciding the best is pointless.

Descriptive analysis (BI) and predictive analysis (BA) are both important for a business. These things also depend on the size of the business or organization.

It is beneficial to start with Business Intelligence to improve operations, boost efficiency, and meet your business goals. Later, you can move on with business analytics to improve your business process.

Arka Softwares can make it easy for you if you need more clarification. As a leading Business Intelligence services provider, we can help solve complex data analytics and reporting challenges for your organization.

You can rely on us to get the best answers to your complex business intelligence and analytics challenges. It would be pleasant for us to hear from your side.

You can simply book a 30-minute consultation with our BI expert.

Satyam Chaturvedi

Satyam Chaturvedi is a Digital Marketing Manager at Arka Softwares, a leading app development company dealing in modern and futuristic solutions. He loves to spend his time studying the latest market insights.

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