“Business Intelligence,” so often written about and discussed in the pages of prominent business publications, seems to have, if not the proverbial nine lives of a cat, then certainly has at least three distinct versions.
As it is currently used, the term “business intelligence” often means data collection – about the business itself, about the sales of its products or services, or some other aspect of the organization and its work. Microsoft, for example, uses the term “Business Intelligence” to mean the accuracy and usefulness of data to guide business decisions and planning. No surprise here: they have a software program that is intended to analyze the business, control its use of resources, and highlight its successes and failures in the light of the data that have been collected. Certainly such information can be of great benefit.
Still another sense of “business intelligence” is one that has been used for centuries and concerns what the owner of a large or small business or not-for-profit organization needs to know about the marketplace. What are the social trends, the business or political climate, or the new technology that might have an impact on how business is done or how an organization directs its work? These questions are ones raised by the use of the term “Business Intelligence” in the widely-read British publication, The Economist. And it should be no surprise either: newspapers and trade journals began in the 17th century as a way to provide information about trade and commerce.
A third idea of “business intelligence” is still older but remains a powerful one today. In this view, commercial life is guided by a widely accepted and crucial set of norms – rules, expectations, and obligations — of buyers and sellers, people engaged in trade and commerce. Developed as the Custom of Merchants during early medieval times, when trade between cities and continents brought merchandise and ideas from far distant places: the far became near and the near far, with rules that allowed business to be conducted in a predictable and mutually satisfying way.
In her book, Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs (better known as the author of the very influential The Death and Life of American Cities) writes that the Custom of Merchants first established what she calls “the Commercial Moral Syndrome.” It consisted of such virtues as honesty; a respect for voluntary agreements; using initiative and being enterprising; and being thrifty, optimistic, and industrious. Of great importance was dissenting for the sake of the task – bringing up for discussion what may not be pleasant to think about, such as the little-acknowledged fact that a long-time and well-liked employee may now be contributing almost no effort to the organization and its work. This notion of business intelligence as a set of virtues and behaviors is now so commonplace, it is rarely questioned.
Each of these kinds of “business intelligence” work together, and each provides essential business knowledge which, in turn, provides guidance and direction to the business or organization, to the marketplace, and to the culture and practice of business and trade among those near and far. So “business intelligence” is both an old and a new term, one that is dynamic and encompasses a large and seemingly expanding collection of ideas.
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