What is Business Intelligence?

The rise of Business Intelligence departments in the sports industry is the new sexy, and I can totally understand why – I’m part of ours.

As data becomes more and more important in every business decision in nearly every industry from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo, properties throughout the sports industry are starting to form data & strategy departments, many of which are adopting the name “Business Intelligence”. A simple formula for what business intelligence units are, are centrally locating the departments and entities from around an organization that are heavily involved in data. Simply put, business intelligence departments are the data departments of organizations, and being used much like internal consultants to the rest of the organization in developing strategies that are ground in data in some way shape or form.

I’m a bit biased of course, but these make a ton of sense. Historically, in my opinion, one of the major problems has been the siloed nature of data throughout organizations. This breaks down many of the barriers that existed before and let the entities work together toward one common goal. Supply Chain 101.

-Alex