What Is The Difference Between Business Intelligence And Analytics?

The terms ‘business analytics’ and ‘business intelligence’ are often used interchangeably, however, the two are not the same. Business analytics is all about analyzing past data to make future decisions whereas business intelligence focuses on analyzing business performance over time. With the increasing significance of data in organizations, the importance of analytics is increasing in almost every business. This makes business analytics a great career option for many young professionals.

If you want to build a career in business analytics or business intelligence, you must understand these fields and also the difference between these two. Many individuals consider the role of business analysts the same as that of business intelligence professionals. Once you understand how the fields differ and how they work, you can choose the right career path for yourself:

What is Business Analytics?

Business Analytics refers to the sets of methods and strategies used to explore organizational data and extract useful insights from it. These insights are further used to make important business decisions, increase business productivity, and improve customer experiences. Nowadays, businesses rely heavily on data to turn their organizational data into insights and make data-driven decisions. The major focus of business analytics is on predicting future trends and outcomes based on present data.

What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence (BI) focuses on understanding the present and past of a business and using this information to make future strategies. It aims to prepare business metrics on the basis of historical data. This metric further helps business leaders in analyzing the business performance over time and make decisions accordingly. Business Intelligence is a broader field and BA can be considered its subset.

Difference Between Business Analytics and Business Intelligence

Business Analytics and Business Intelligence, though closely related, are two entirely different fields. The following are some most significant differences between BI and BA:

The Idea

The idea behind business analytics is to analyze organizational data to gain useful information. On the other hand, business intelligence is all about the idea of strategies to understand the present and past of a business and use this information to improve business processes. Business Intelligence is a larger umbrella term and business analytics is a subset of that.

The Focus

Business analytics majorly focuses on the analysis of organizational data whereas Business Intelligence focuses majorly on data management. BI is focused on the aggregated data that is collected from multiple sources and is used to gain insights into a company’s performance. On the other hand, business analytics focuses on the extraction and analysis of this data to make better decisions for a business and forecast future trends.

Applications

The applications of business analytics and business intelligence are also quite different. Business Intelligence helps you get insights into the performance of your company over time. On the other hand, business analytics helps you make better data-driven decisions and optimize business operations for the future.

Tools Used

The most important tools used in Business Intelligence are PowerBI, TIBCO, QlikSense, and SAP Business Objects. BI uses these tools for data collection, data analysis, and data reporting. On the other hand, Business Analysts use different tools, such as Google Docs, MS Office Tools, Word Processing, and MS Visio.

Ease of Operations

Business Intelligence uses various tools and systems that make it easier for professionals to access, store, and analyze data. They can do it even without any coding or technical knowledge. On the other hand, business analysts need to be very proficient in technical subjects, such as mathematics, statistics, and programming. As business analytics deals with the analysis of massive volumes of data, the process is more time-consuming and requires more resources as well.

Approach

Business analytics uses predictive and prescriptive analysis in conjunction with descriptive statistics to make important sales or marketing-related predictions. One of the major differences between the two fields is that Business Intelligence focuses on descriptive analysis whereas business analytics focuses on predictive analysis.

Aim

The aim of Business Intelligence is to present data-driven information in such a way that it becomes easy to understand for the people within an organization. On the other hand, Business analytics aims to present data-driven information in such a manner that it becomes easy to understand for people outside an organization.

Roles

Mostly, IT departments and their vendors use Business Intelligence techniques. On the other hand, Business analytics is mainly used by business departments and their consultants. Talking about the roles divided by BI and BA, business intelligence is generally used by managers who make decisions on the basis of reports and dashboards created by data analysts. The major responsibility of data analysts is to analyze data and present it in the form of reports to make it easy to understand for business leaders and managers.

How To Build a Career in Business Analytics?

With the rapid growth in the analytics industry, business analytics has become a great career option for many youngsters. There are no specific educational requirements that you need to fulfill, however, you must have an interest in learning technical subjects like mathematics and programming. The best way to start a career in this field is to enroll in a business analytics certification course. You can find plenty of business analytics course options online and offline.

One of the best options to consider is the online business analytics professional course by Edvancer. This course gives you a comprehensive coverage of all the important subjects and also allows you to gain practical experience while learning.