Business Intelligence uses a data integration and ETL middleware tool to extract requested data from wherever it's stored, transform it to meet formatting, quality and other operational needs, and then load it into a database or data warehouse where it is accessed by users. BI breaks down information silos within the organization and makes your company's enormous amounts of data available for analysis. Data can be analyzed almost as quickly as it's collected, allowing the business to respond quickly to performance issues and sudden changes in business conditions.

The most common uses of BI are reporting of financial and operational performance measurements against goals, forecasting of future performance via the visualization of trends and patterns based on historical data dashboards that show key performance indicators (KPIs) and performance alerts and/or alarms at a glance.