Okay, over the years, many have joked that 'business intelligence,' like its cousin, 'military intelligence,' are oxymorons. But BI has stuck as a defining umbrella term for all the activities that pertain to the gathering of data and presentating as information of some use to decision makers -- be it through Excel or intelligent portals or dashboards.
Lately, Colin White, who has been instrumental in putting the 'intelligence' into business intelligence, has questioned whether BI is still an appropriate moniker.
He notes that 'business analytics' seems to be a term with more traction from a business perspective. Business users, he observes, "always seem comfortable with the term business analytics, but often view BI as a vague and imprecise technical term."
Colin says that the term "operational analytics," for instance, is seen as more "dynamic" than "operational BI." True, analytics seems to have more of a hard-hitting and more focused tone to it than the more amorphous BI. And some vendors say the term BI has been getting watered down with all kinds of solutions, including simple reporting tools.
Does "analytics" better define or describe the new breed of sophisticated tools and capabilities now arriving on the market?
So how would you call a person dealing with reports and analysis for management?
Business Analyzer?
Business Analytics specialist?
Business Analyst? (this was used more for IT purposes).
Any thoughts?
Daniel
Thanks for the wonderful help! ed hardy