Business intelligence is used to define strategic needs, develop innovative solutions and meet business reporting objectives. Intelligence analysts and researchers often serve as liaisons between IT and business management. They work in many different industries to actualize data requests and improve the functional value of business reports. Below introduces how organizations in different sectors use business intelligence.

IT Industry Intelligence

The IT industry relies on intelligence to improve efficiency, mentor employees, support technical project decisions and guide solution development. Intelligence data is usually collected from data warehouses for application development and system audits. Intelligence analysts must proactively monitor and maintain tracking solutions for continuous performance, risk management and strategic planning purposes. An IT analyst may use intelligence to develop and recommend scalable solutions for everything from schema design to storage engines to indexing strategies. In order to make these high-performing proposals work, IT analysts must maintain effective working relationships with business units and departments to coordinate data collection.

Finance Industry Intelligence

An intelligence analyst that works for a financial firm may gather and analyze data in order to determine compliance with regulations, fulfill business-as-usual requests or generate data analytics reports. A finance intelligence analyst will work with stakeholders from many departments to research financial results, transactions and performance. They may be accountable for creating and maintaining information repository, which may consist of databases or data warehouses. These intelligence analysts are expected to analyze different data sets in order to deliver relevant and actionable insights to decision makers. For example, they may research new internal control methods, solutions to improve productivity or ways of introducing process improvements to employees.

Software Development Intelligence

Software development companies use intelligence analysts to research and better understand application functionality and performance. An intelligence researcher may create customized dashboards that generate reports to fulfill unique information requests from software architects and developers. They may work with programmers to document intelligence specifications for IT reports, outputs and dashboards. Some of these intelligence analysts will help programmers create alternative information delivery solutions, such as data extracts, dashboard reports and self-service analytics tools. Intelligence analysts who work with software on the market may conduct research in order to design and implement system guidelines, tutorials and best practices. Software development intelligence involves data and system security, integrity and validity research.

Supply Chain Intelligence

An intelligence analysts who works for a supply chain department or organization may develop reporting and dashboard solutions for internal and external customers. They must ensure reporting solutions are scalable, understandable and maintainable for customers while conforming to industry best practices. These intelligence analysts will provide analytical support in the development of integrated performance metrics. For example, they may gather data from warehouse, shipping and production information systems in order to propose unified solutions that streamline processes and reduce redundancies and human errors. These intelligence analysts use data to evaluate the performance of supply chain programs and take corrective actions to resolve discrepancies. They may work with business analysts, end users and management to refine reporting requirements and capabilities.

Some business intelligence professionals may also be market researchers who design and maintain software tools, business applications, server databases and intelligence dashboards. These intelligence analysts will synthesize consumer, competitor, market and industry trends to generate business solutions and recommendations.