Business Analytics (BA) or Business Intelligence (BI)? Many people are still confused with these terms. It looks like the same thing, but it's not.
In your article The New World of “Business Analytics”, produced for the International Institute for Analytics, the North American author Thomas H. Davenport points out that Business Intelligence refers to the reporting of company indicators, while Business Analytics is the process that brings together the reporting of indicators, their analysis, scenario forecasting and recommendations.
If we applied the concept of Business Intelligence, say, to Isaquias Queiroz's performance at the Tokyo Olympic Games, we would result in several relevant pieces of information.
We would know that the 27-year-old athlete from Bahia won the gold medal in the C1 1000 category of speed canoeing. Which was the fourth Olympic medal in his career. In the final competition, he had a time of 4min04s408, followed by the Chinese Liu Hao, with 4min05s724, and the Moldovan Serghei Tarnovschi with 4min06s069.
But if we applied the concept of Business Analytics, we would use all the data provided by Business Intelligence tools to understand how and why the Brazilian canoeist won the final race.
We would compare the influence of important indicators, such as the physical fitness of each athlete, weather conditions, and the force each person applied to the water.
We would conclude what their competitive advantages were and we could simulate their prospects for Paris 2024, also making recommendations on the best strategies in each scenario.
Improved data plus analytical capacity: this is how companies that use Business Analytics are already one step ahead of the competition.
