Re-Evaluating the Definition of Intelligence in Business Intelligence

Objective – Business Intelligence has little bearing with graphs and dashboards of traditionally defined Business Intelligence. Rather it is all about experience and sound judgement of the person at the helm of the decision-making process. In line with this view, we evaluate and subsequently, reposition the current definition of Business Intelligence in the literature.Methodology/Technique – The initial development of the data, information, knowledge and wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy excluded intelligence and so it never questioned the accepted definition of Business Intelligence. The extended DIKIW hierarchy includes intelligence but we raise the question about the definition of intelligence in Business Intelligence. This paper positions the existing definition of Business Intelligence as Business Information instead, and so, it redefines traditional Business Intelligence.Findings – Applying the DIKIW hierarchy, the new definition of Business Intelligence is shown in equation as the transformation of “Business Data to Business Information to Business Knowledge to Business Intelligence to Business Wisdom”.Novelty – The impact of the new definition of Business Intelligence is that it changes its meaning from one that belongs to information science into one that is a human behavioural science and profiling concept. It does not do away with the existing work in literature but it redefines Business Intelligence as belonging to the realm of Business Information