Business intelligence can be used by enterprises to support a wide range of business decisions - ranging from operational to strategic. Basic operating decisions include product positioning or pricing.
Strategic business decisions involve priorities,
goals and directions at the broadest level. In all cases, BI is most effective when it combines data derived from the market in which a
company operates (external data) with data from company sources internal to the business such as financial and operations data (internal data). When combined, external and internal data can provide a more complete picture which, in effect, creates an "intelligence" that cannot be derived by any singular set of data.
[3] Amongst myriad uses, business intelligence tools
empower organizations to gain insight into new markets, to assess demand and suitability of products and services for different
market segments and to gauge the impact of marketing efforts.
[4]