Business Intelligence:

Business Intelligence refers to computer based technique, used in identifying and analyzing business data to get an insight into the trends of business health. The sales summary, market summary etc. of any business by region, by time period, by product, by product class etc.
Business intelligence aims to support business decision making by creating processes using transformation of business data in a form that helps in decision making.
Often transforming of business data is done using the concept of data warehousing.
PS: Remember that all Data warehouse is used in business intelligence, but all business intelligence does not require data warehousing.
In simple terms “Business Intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making”.
Common uses of business intelligence are reporting, data mining, process mining, business performance intelligence, predictive analysis.

In the next post I will describe about business intelligence and its use in reporting.