Business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) play an important role in the measurement, analysis and description of data. The two concepts are common in the application of technology in businesses. These two terms are however different in several ways. In terms of definition, business intelligence can be viewed as the use and analysis of data in order to understand the past and present of a company. Business analytics on the other hand refers to the use and analysis of business data for future purposes. Business intelligence is therefore a process of accessing, storing, interpreting and retrieving useful information or data in order to be informed of the business past and present operations and how they compare ( Chen, Chiang & Storey, 2012) .
Business analytics involves using tools and technologies on data in order to analyze how several aspects of the business are projected to change in the future. Whereas BI help organizations and businesses make informed and wise decisions based on what had happened and how it is currently happening, BA helps in developing enhanced course of action, forecast how they will occur and come up with the most effective way of achieving the set outcome ( Chen, Chiang & Storey, 2012) .
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Business intelligence acts as a guide to planning and executions through provisions of deep insights on business metrical status while business analytics is an effective way of business future preparations. Business analytics has three main components including data, statistics and assumptions ( Lim, Chen & Chen, 2013) . Data is the information collected on business; statistics are based on regression analysis of the data while assumptions are the projections made. Below is an overview of the differences between business intelligence and business analytics.
Differences between BI and BA
| Business Intelligence | Business Analytics |
| Use of data in business operations and decision making | Use of data to effect business changes |
| Based on historical analysis of data | Based on trends and statistical analysis |
| Tells what happened | Tells what is yet to happen |
| Able to improve business current strategies based on past information and results | Develops future strategies based on predictions |
| Determines current issues and how to solve them | determines future potential problems and identifies ways of avoiding them |
References
Chen, H., Chiang, R. H., & Storey, V. C. (2012). Business intelligence and analytics: from big data to big impact. MIS quarterly , 1165-1188.
Lim, E. P., Chen, H., & Chen, G. (2013). Business intelligence and analytics: Research directions. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS) , 3 (4), 17.
