“Homo Corporatus” was basing his/her business decisions on gut feel long before computers existed. Winging it and winning was the highest validation of the savvy business leader.  But now, a new age has dawned.  Can tech leaders use BI wizardry to beat, or at least better Homo Corporatus’ decision making? Just how intelligent is BI?

Companies have spent millions on developing BI tools, techniques, and algorithms, but there’s a whole set of processes from collection and data mining to proper interpretation of it all that has to be handled. All of this has to be done within a reasonable time frame, while the intelligence still has value.  Then there is also the question of data accuracy.  Do we have enough time to make decisions for corresponding BI related insights to be produced and leveraged? What about accuracy of the data?

Does BI beat the gut? How often has information delivered by the BI function for decisions turned out to be misaligned with business or contradicted what the gut says? Are we using BI to actually make decisions or just using it as an excuse for the decisions we made that failed?