In the age of knowledge ushered in by the IT revolution, success in business is mandated on the corporate entity being well-informed about the environment around and committed to knowledge-based decision making the latter being the new hallmark of leadership, different from the past in as much as no one could claim any more to be a leader mainly on the strength of ‘inheritance’ or personal ‘charisma’. The Covid disaster disrupted not only the flow of relevant information from outside needed by businesses but also the internal processes of communication and evaluation of where did the organization and its manpower stand in the scheme of things. In the new age, ‘competitiveness’ has acquired a global dimension because the use of information or data could enable a ‘smart’ player to score over a bigger rival in a ‘borderless’ market this challenger could be operating out of any place on the globe. Corporate houses, therefore, are investing a great deal in establishing a system that would guarantee access to information about the external factors impacting business such as the political environment and the contours of policy making by the government, law and order management, state of the economy, including the quantum of ‘demand’, socio-cultural preferences and discordance, if any, and technological advancement existing in the identified geography.
A basic principle of information gathering is to take stock of what is already known within the organization, before proceeding to tap the external sources for any specific requirement. Internally available information — it was realized is a resource not to be missed out on. ‘No one knows everything but everybody knows something’ this is a corollary of the age of knowledge, and the corporates rightly realized the importance of tapping the ‘tacit’ knowledge all employees carry with them that did not become available for the cause of the organization only because the latter did not build a system of garnering it. The term Business Intelligence is now being used for a wide variety of information gathering arrangements perhaps without an adequate understand- ing of the difference that exists between the words ‘Information’ and ‘Intelligence’.
Information can be defined as any ‘intelligible fact or data that tells you something you did not already know’ this clearly grades people on the scale of being well-informed since in a specific context someone would be ‘better in- formed’ than the other and thus would have a competitive edge. Intelligence is by definition information that tells you ‘what lies ahead. It is thus clear that all intelligence is information but all information is not intelligence. Between two ‘peak performers’ who have the same knowledge of the past and a matching capability of handling all matters in the present, the only thing that would put one ahead of the other is intelligence or insight into the future. What lies ahead is either a set of ‘opportunities’ or a cluster of ‘risks’ and both of these are crucial for business advancement. Intelligence is also described as ‘information for action’ and clearly no business organization would sit on the information of intelligence value that gives a clue about an attractive option of profitable growth or an impending danger on the horizon. In the new age we live in, instant communication and borderless sharing of information have made prompt ‘action’ a prerequisite for success and made ‘time’ a new resource adding on to the earlier three ‘finances’, ‘man power’, and exclusively owned ‘information’. The prolonged Covid crisis that created the hybrid work environment made human resource management far more challenging and added to the difficulties in tracking demand, supply chain, and level of productivity. The function of Business Intelligence (BI) faces difficult tasks of building the information base, setting new parameters for data analytics, and helping the process of reviewing the business plans. Covid no doubt acted as an equalizer for businesses big and small but it certainly put a premium on corporates that had already adopted technology for globalized operations while at the same time it made manufacturing business a far more tedious proposition.
A lot of technology-based systems of internal management, performance evaluation, and human resource deployment are already in operation, but in the Covid environment the real challenge facing Business Intelligence is updating and consolidating data and carrying out a meaningful analysis of the same in order to help maximization of business performance. The problem of data analytics in Covid times entailed tapping of new information sources like social media, digital platforms, and electronic news channels in a situation of diminishing ‘direct’ human outreach.
Information obtained through direct human interaction yielded intelligence that was basic to business studies carried out earlier. Business Intelligence output has now become more of a test of competent analysis that would provide an ‘insight’ into the future earlier BI was mostly engaged in the collation of raw data to identify business trends in general. Business Intelligence units today must grasp the significance of Albert Einstein’s famous saying that “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Only a human mind has the ability to look beyond what the available facts or data mean in the present to read into what could happen in the period ahead. A standing example in this context is the 9/11 Commission report that faulted the CIA for not showing enough imagination in handling the available information to the effect that some suspects taking training in a flying club on US soil were interested only in learning how to take off but not in the technique of ‘landing’.The use of the human trait of ‘imagination’ has a bearing on the rising expectations from Artificial Intelligence(AI) or Machine Learning as the tools for Business Intelligence. AI no doubt multiplies the capacity of the organization to analyze data from newer angles and derive benefits from that in such ar- eas as the handling of human resources.
