ARCHIVED: What is Business Intelligence (BI)?

This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.

Business Intelligence is a set of technologies and processes that help decision-makers use data to understand and analyze organizational performance, enabling fact-based management to drive decisions and actions. By getting the right information to the right people at the right time, BI supports decision-making and organizational effectiveness. BI is a broad term that refers to an entire decision support environment, including the data warehouse, reporting, and analytics, and to the processes and information maintained by smaller groups, such as units or departments, and those serving divisions or an entire enterprise.

At Indiana University, large-scale BI is handled by Enterprise Business Intelligence (EBI). EBI provides the architecture, processes, and tools for report authoring, and presents reports through the Consolidated Business Intelligence (CBI) portal. For more, see ARCHIVED: About Enterprise Business Intelligence (EBI) at IU.