At one point I considered asking my boss to formally change my job title to “Business Intelligence Application Architect.” Although that’s the contemporary way to refer to the type of work I do, I faced enough blank stares at the sound of it to change my mind.
Still, those blank stares got me thinking about the widespread lack of understanding of BI both inside and outside the IT department. And since I disagree, mildly or strongly, with all of the current definitions of business intelligence that I’ve found on the web and in books, I’ve decided to put forth my own definition. To wit:
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The Cato Definition of Business Intelligence
The use of information technology to strategically collect, store, transform and deploy an enterprise’s data. A principal goal of business intelligence is to derive knowledge from information in a way that will facilitate improved decision-making. The creation and use of an Enterprise Data Warehouse is a common method of carrying out a business intelligence strategy.
Have a good day.
Cato's Life of the Mind is the personal site of Jamel Cato, a blogger and database developer who can usually be found between the pages of a good book when he's not laughing with his wife and kids. | 