Business Intelligence: Popping Up a Level Pushes Search into the Background
January 17, 2022
I spotted a diagram in this Data Science Central article “Business Intelligence Analytics in One Picture.” The diagram takes business intelligence and describes it as an “umbrella term.” From my point of view, this popping up a conceptual label creates confusion. First, can anyone define “intelligence” as the word is used in computer sectors. Now how about “artificial intelligence,” “government intelligence,” or “business intelligence.” Each of these phrases is designed to sidestep the problem of explaining what functions are necessary to produce useful or higher value information.
Let’s take an example. Business intelligence suggests that information about a market, a competitor, a potential new hire, or a technology can be produced, obtained (fair means or foul means), or predicted (fancy math, synthetic data, etc.) The core idea is gaining an advantage. That is too crude for many professionals who are providers of business intelligence; for example, the mid tier consulting firms cranking out variations of General Eisenhower’s four square graph or a hyperbole cycle.
Business intelligence is a marketing confection. The graph identifies specific “components” of business intelligence. Some of the techniques necessary to obtain high value information are not included; for example, running a fake job posting designed to attract employees who currently work at the company one is subject to a business intelligence process, surveillance via mobile phones, sitting in a Starbucks watching and eavesdropping, or using analytic procedures to extract “secrets” from publicly available documents like patent applications, among others.
Business intelligence is not doing any of those things because they are [a] unethical, [b] illegal, [c] too expensive, or [d] difficult. The notion of “ethical behavior” is an interesting one. We have certain highly regarded companies taking actions which some in government agencies find improper. Nevertheless, the actions continue, not for a week or two but for decades. So maybe ethics applied to business intelligence is a non-starter. Nevertheless, certain research groups are quick to point out that unethical information gathering is not the dish served as conference luncheons.
Here are the elements or molecules of business intelligence:
- Data mining
- Data visualization
- Data preparation
- Data analytics
- Performance metrics / benchmarking
- Querying
- Reporting
- Statistical analysis
- Visual analysis
Data mining, data analytics, performance metrics / benchmarking, and statistical analysis strike me as one thing: Numerical procedures.
Now the list looks like this:
- Numerical procedures
- Data visualization
- Data preparation
- Querying
- Reporting
- Visual analysis
Let’s concatenate data visualization and visual analysis into one function: Producing charts and graphs.
Now the list looks like this:
- Producing charts and graphs
- Data preparation
- Numerical procedures
- Querying
- Reporting.
Querying, in this simplification, has moved from one of nine functions to one of five functions.
What’s up with business intelligence whipping up disciplines? Is the goal to make business intelligence more important? Is it a buzzword exercise so consultants can preach doom and sell snake oil? Is it a desire to add holiday lights and ornaments to distract people from what business intelligence is?
My hunch is that business intelligence professionals don’t want to use the words spying, surveillance, intercepts, eavesdrop, or operate like a nation state’s intelligence agency professionals.
One approach is business intelligence which seems to mean good, mathy, and valuable. The spy approach is bad and could lead to an on one Lifetime Report Card.
The fact is that one of the most important components of any intelligence operation is asking the right question. Without querying, masses of data, statistics software, and online experts with MBAs would not be able to find an online ad using Google.
Net net: The chart makes spying and surveillance into a math-centric operation. The chart fails to provide a hierarchy based on asking the right question. Will the diagram help sell business intelligence consulting and services? The scary answer is, “Absolutely.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 14, 2022
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