This is a great blog posting by
Timo Elliott discussing these 2 points... Check out the full article here.
"What’s the difference between Business Analytics and Business
Intelligence? The correct answer is: everybody has an opinion, but
nobody knows, and you shouldn’t care.
Having worked in the industry over twenty years, I can confidently
say that everybody has a different notion of what ANY particular term
associated with analytics means.
For example, when SAP says “business analytics” instead of “business
intelligence”, it’s intended to indicate that business analytics is an
umbrella term including data warehousing, business intelligence,
enterprise information management, enterprise performance management,
analytic applications, and governance, risk, and compliance.
But other vendors (such as SAS) use “business analytics” to indicate
some level of vertical/horizontal domain knowledge tied with statistical
or predictive analytics.
At the end of the day, there are two things worth differentiating:
- The first is the business aspect of BI — the need to get the most
value out of information. This need hasn’t really changed in over fifty
years (although the increasing complexity of the world economy means
it’s ever harder to deliver). And the majority of real issues that stop
us from getting value out of information (information culture, politics,
lack of analytic competence, etc.) haven’t changed in decades either.
- The second is the IT aspect of BI — what technology is used to help
provide the business need. This obviously does change over time — sometimes radically.
The problems in nomenclature typically arise because “business intelligence” is commonly used to refer
both of these, according to the context, thus confusing the heck out of everyone." by
Timo Elliott
Check out the full article here.
