Business data is information that you keep track of the operations of your company. It encompasses both internal processes and external ones, like payroll, customer service, and sales transactions.
In a highly competitive marketplace, having access to the right business information is crucial to success. These data can help you determine areas for improvement, forecast future performance, and more. You are left to make your decisions based on intuition, personal experience, information, or other intangible methods that can lead you to costly mistakes and misguided strategies.
With the right tools, you can analyse business data and discover potential opportunities for your company’s expansion. This process is referred to as business intelligence, or BI, and it lets you quickly and efficiently answer questions that are essential to strategic planning and decision-making.
BI is a broad term that encompasses a broad range of activities. Some of the key characteristics are data visualization, text mining, and predictive analytics. These techniques can help analysts prioritize and organize their workflow, recognize patterns and trends, and interpret complex data sets. As they work with different sources of data, and need to often develop their own methods of visualizing the information as well as develop their own ideas, they require a lot of the ability to think creatively. Additionally, successful business intelligence professionals have a solid knowledge of math and the ability to think critically. They are also self-motivated and frequently work on their own. If you’re considering a career as computer scientist, think about the possibility of a bachelor’s degree in information technology or business, or computer science.