Business Intelligence

This article provides a brief history of Business Intelligence, starting from its introduction in the 19th century to the advancements in technology in the 21st century. It explores the origins of BI, the development of data storage systems, and the emergence of modern BI tools. The article also discusses the evolution of BI 2.0 and its impact on organizations.

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Business Intelligence
Student Details
4/22/2019

BI 2
Business Intelligence (BI)
Richard Miller Devens introduced the term “Business Intelligence” in 1865 for the first time
when he was working on ‘Cyclopaedia of Commercial and Business Anecdotes’. He made use of
this term to describe the intelligence of Sir Henry Furnese, a banker, who made profit by
gathering information and by taking proper actions on it before his competitors. Furnese had the
complete knowledge and understanding of instabilities, political issues, and the market before
any of his competitors (Heinze, 2014). Till 20th century, advancement in technology is not up to
that level where it can be considered as business intelligence’s agent. In 1958, a computer
scientist of IBM named Hans Peter Luhn wrote an article which described the potential of
Business Intelligence. The title of this article was “A Business Intelligence System” describing
development of an automatic system which is capable of spreading information to the various
sections of any scientific, industrial, or government organization (Foote, 2017). Hence, BI can be
defined as a method of gathering and understanding large amounts of information very quickly in
order to make best possible decisions. Today Luhn is considered as a father of Business
Intelligence because of his contribution in not only introducing and expanding the concept but
also establishing methods through his research on which most of the analytical systems of IBM
are built (Foote, 2017).
Invention of computers provided an alternative to the organizations for storing data. In 1956,
IBM invented hard disc which brought revolution in data storage. Further development of laser
discs, floppy discs, and other storage technologies created more and more space for the data
storage (Heinze, 2014). This resulted in creation of first data management systems which
together known as Decision Support Systems (DSS). It is believed by many historians that the
modern version of BI has evolved from DSS database (Sauter, 2014). This technology was new,
clumsy, and very difficult to use. A conference held in 1988 to streamline data processes and
soon after this conference, modern phase of business intelligence initiated (Turban, et al., 2010).
In 1989, A Gartner analyst, Howard Dresner, again used the term business intelligence in order
to describe the terms used for data storage and data analysis methods such as DSS and Executive
Information System (EIS). In 1980s many vendors come into market developing a tool for
accessing and organizing data in simplified form. Some of the tools for that purpose include EIS,

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OLAP, and data warehouses (Sauter, 2014). Later this developmental phase was named as
business intelligence 1.0.
During 1990’s and early 2000’s, two basic functions of BI were production and reporting of data,
and organizing data and visualizing it in acceptable way. But still two issues were resisting this
emergent phase of the technology: time and complexity. Dawn of 21st century brought turning
point in technology advancement and resolved both issues of speed and complexity through
introducing BI 2.0 (Tgpcet, 2019). It included a host of various technologies such as real-time
processing and allowing organizations to make decisions depending on the most current
information. Business Intelligence of mid-2000 has undergone through intense refining process
and improved agility and speed to a great extent (Heinze, 2014).

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References
Foote, K. D., 2017. A Brief History of Business Intelligence. [Online]
Available at: https://www.dataversity.net/brief-history-business-intelligence/
Heinze, J., 2014. History of Business Intelligence. [Online]
Available at: https://www.betterbuys.com/bi/history-of-business-intelligence/
Sauter, V. L., 2014. Decision support systems for business intelligence. London: John Wiley &
Sons.
Tgpcet, 2019. Evolution of Business Intelligence. [Online]
Available at: http://www.tgpcet.com/CSE-QP/7SEM/Big-Data-Unit-4-5-6.pdf
Turban, E., Sharda, R. & Delen, D., 2010. Decision Support and Business Intelligence Systems
(required). [Online].