What’s In a Name: BI vs. BA

Usually when people talk about semantics with BI, they’re talking about clear metrics definition, or lack thereof. But, this video from eWeek highlights the broader semantic issue around the whole category.

The video offers relative definitions of BI and BA, or Business Analytics. Basically, the premise is that BI is backward-looking, a technology or process that helps organizations understand what happened, while BA is forward-looking and predictive.

It’s a neat definition, but not 100% accurate. For one thing, different players in our industry have long used the terms interchangeably. SAS and SPSS were in the BA camp, while Business Objects, Cognos and Microstrategy called themselves BI providers.

In our view, the difference between BI and BA is basically how the data is processed and presented to the user – what I would characterize as features of the tool or platform. In other words, these are NOT market categories.  And vendors such as Microstrategy and Microsoft have released this level of functionality in their BI platform or tool in a very integrated manner. You can see why there is plenty of semantic confusion among non-technical folks.

Whatever we call it, it’s important to remember the core goal – to help businesspeople make better decisions. And whether you say BI or BA, the problem has long been that too small a community of users had access to the tools and data sets. The fact is, everyone should have information at their fingertips (to borrow an old Bill Gates phrase), not just data analysts or a senior management elite. And the information and toolsets should be readily available and easy to use.

The point is, BI should be pervasive within an organization – not just one person’s job title or a standalone tool. At companies with effective BI platforms, everyone is oriented to the same important business metrics and information, instead of one guy with a dashboard ringing a bell when he sees a potential problem or red light.

Increased speed of delivery and broader, easier access to quality data are the two driving forces behind the rise of Agile BI, an emerging category we see as fundamentally different than traditional BI approaches. Certainly, it’s more than a name change. Agile BI is helping to migrate the dialog toward providing users with access to the information and tools they need to gain valuable insight into performance and start making fact-based decisions.