Every enterprise today is using data to gain visibility within its organization, improve efficiency, create new business opportunities, and sharpen competitiveness. The insights extracted and the actions produced from this data are referred to as data intelligence.
More importantly, data is only suitable
for decision-making if it is accurate, reliable, and up-to-date. This is where good data intelligence plays a crucial role — enabling enterprises to simply and effectively understand the vast amounts of data they generate, and successfully leverage it to unlock business value.
Data intelligence doesn’t come from one source. Rather, it comes from the fusion and analysis of multiple sources. For example, at an oil rig, data comes from machines, sensors, operational software, and work logs. By combining these disparate data sources, significant data intelligence can be derived.
There are broadly three areas in which data intelligence can be useful — operations, performance, and business.
Let us take a closer look at each of these in turn.
Operational Intelligence
Operational Intelligence, or OI, is focused on improving operational efficiency. For example, predictive maintenance can predict failures weeks in advance, avoiding unplanned downtime.
But OI is about much more than predictive maintenance. By using data intelligence, operators can keep track of when to service the machines, when to order consumables, and when to reschedule operations or personnel. All these lead to improved efficiencies.
Performance Intelligence
It is important to understand that improving efficiencies and reducing risks is not just a technology challenge. It is also a cultural challenge. If operators don’t act on the OI produced by technology, then there can be little efficiency improvement.
Therefore, data intelligence should not be solely about producing insights from machines and processes. It should also be about ensuring that proper actions are taken based on those insights. This is called Performance Intelligence, or PI.
By using PI, a company can cultivate a data-driven culture, improve the performance of its people, and measure this performance to continuously improve.
Business Intelligence
Ultimately, data intelligence needs to serve the business. By aggregating data insights across the organization, strategic business decisions can be made in planning, training, resourcing, and new product decisions.
In addition, when data intelligence is offered to end customers, such as from a machine builder, it can be leveraged to create new revenue opportunities.
To sum up
Every business generates data, and data intelligence is fundamentally all about using this data to make better business decisions. It is a powerful and essential tool for enterprises across verticals.
When effectively utilized, data intelligence brings in knowledge that translates to business efficiency, agility, and competitive advantage.
Is your organization making optimal use of your data?
