Big Data: Business Analytics and Business Intelligence

In the past, IT worked primarily with finance to run reports, which were often used to justify decisions leaders had already made. That is changing with big data. Managers are analyzing enormous data sets to discover new patterns and running controlled experiments to test hypothesis. Decision making that was once based on hunches and intuition is now driven by data and knowledge."—Erik Brynjolfsson

Based on research in MIT’s Media Lab and the MIT Center for Digital Business, Professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Sandy Pentland will explore how big data changes the way IT interacts with the rest of the organization, cutting across business units and functions to create new value, and how it can have a huge impact on business results. They draw on the world-leading research that has made the big data revolution possible.


BA refers to technologies, applications, skills and practices for the investigation of past business performance to improve insight into this past performance. BA is much more than merely providing simple data to a business. By using BA tools, meaning can be found in data which results in a business improving its business intelligence. Some examples of Business Analytics include statistical analysis, decision processes, web analytics etc
An important distinction needs to be made between BA and Business Intelligence (BI). BA mostly focuses on creating novel insights and the understanding of business performance based on statistical methods, data, quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive modeling and fact-based management to drive decision making. Business Intelligence also uses data and statistical methods, yet it rather focuses on using a set of metrics to measure both past performance and guide business planning.

 Also it looks at querying, reporting, OLAP and alerts. Examples of questions asked by Business Analytics are “why is this happening”, “what if these trends continue”, “what will happen next” and “what is the optimal outcome”. Examples of questions asked by BI are “what happened”, “how many times did it happen”, “where the problem is” and “what are the solutions to the problem”.

 Business Analytics that informs business decisions can be used to optimise business processes. Also, data-driven companies use their data as a strategic asset by enhancing competitiveness.

A recent paper by IBM shows the three ways in which the most successful companies are operating when they deploy business analytics. The high performing businesses are firstlychallenging in that they create an environment which is receptive to innovation by disrupting the status quo, and they are more ambitious in applying new insights. Secondly, they’re good atanticipating and predicting outcomes and trade-offs proactively. Thirdly, they’re empowering by allowing employees to use information with confidence which helps them act on their insights to improve the business.

 Use big data analytics to generate new business insight and competitive advantage. • Work with business decision makers to identify use cases for big data solutions. • Manage the three Vs of big data—volume, variety, and velocity. • Adapt their data architecture and infrastructure to meet the demands of big data.