Business Analytics and Performance management

Business Analytics (BA) involves the use of skills, technologies, applications, and practices to continuously explore and analyze past business performance. Its goal is to uncover insights and support data-driven business planning. Unlike Business Intelligence (BI), which typically relies on consistent metrics to report on past performance and inform planning, BA emphasizes developing new insights through data analysis and statistical methods.

Business analytics relies heavily on data, statistical and quantitative analysis, and both explanatory and predictive modeling. It supports decision-making through fact-based management and can inform either human decisions or automated systems. In contrast, BI focuses on querying, reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), and generating alerts.

Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) is a subset of Business Performance Management that enhances operational visibility across the enterprise using a closed-loop approach. Driven by corporate strategies, academic insights, and commercial tools, EPM includes several key areas:

1. Strategy Formulation

2. Business Planning and Forecasting

3. Financial Management