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Data Types in Business Intelligence
A gentle introduction to Business Intelligence and the types of data you will encounter
Datafication refers to the measurement and storage of everything in our lives. Every day more ordinary appliances become “smart” furthering the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) universe. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the newest smart refrigerator and think about the amount of data that it could collect from you. Thanks to more affordable smart devices, the rate at which we generate information is increasing by the day. It has never been more critical that a business is data-literate to navigate today’s fast-paced business climate.
Business Intelligence (BI) is a blanket term that encompasses generating, measuring, storing, communicating, and analyzing data — that is a lot of verbs! While BI has been around since the 1960’s it has taken hold as a buzzword the last few years with the emergence of fields such as data science.
That smart refrigerator we referred to earlier can capture data to make inferences on the times you eat, what types of food you eat, the quantity you eat, and much more. This data is often sent back to the company who created it to improve future versions of the product among other things. This is a high-level description of the data-fueled business intelligence cycle specifically for product management. Decisions need to be inspired by insights mined from data rather than hunches or feelings to prevent bias.
Data drives two main types of decisions:
Operational decisions use data to help model more efficient futures. Netflix uses A/B testing to harness the data you generate on their platform to keep recommending you binge-worthy series after series. Netflix’s recommender system makes its user experience more enjoyable by you not having to search all movie/series titles A-Z. Could you imagine how terrible that would be?
Southwest Airlines almost exclusively flies…
