Hopefully by now we’re all well versed in the forms of business intelligence that I discussed in my first article (peers, industry publications, and databases).  Now the question remains, what do we do with the information?  I recently read an article by Tom Groenfeldt, written for Forbes.  Here’s a quick link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomgroenfeldt/2014/07/30/business-intelligence-bi-isnt-very-intelligent-yet

Tom cleverly points out that “in a SunGard survey of executives in the two industries, only 20 percent use proactive and investigative techniques or showed an interest in scorecards, dashboards and analytics techniques.”  In short, this means that many executives and business analysts are using previously recorded data to formulate strategies and make decisions.  He goes on to say that “only 13% of respondents utilize advanced BI techniques such as predictive analytics and alerts.”  

While this may not be a surprise in for some of us, I would have expected a higher percentage of executives to use some form of predictive analytics, especially in high tech industries.  With this said, I feel like this is a good opportunity to be a part of what could be a movement in this direction.  Clearly there will be growth in this field, and it’s likely that more companies, in a wider set of industries, could employ these tools to develop strategies.  If we can acquire these skills (or at least be able to speak the language), we certainly put ourselves on the front end of a trend that will likely have staying power.

I had a meeting with a business intelligence officer at my company today, and I was very impressed with the tools we have at hand.  However, it does seem that our company is mostly focused on managing and interpreting the bulk data that we collect regularly.  Do any of you have experience with predictive analytics and alerts?  What has your experience been?