The paper deals with the study of the role and importance of business intelligence in the operations of organizations and the research of its application in organizations. The concept of business intelligence, development through history, tools, advantages and disadvantages of the influence of business intelligence on the development of organizations are presented. The main goal of business intelligence is not the creation of new information, but the generation of the highest quality information for making business decisions. Business intelligence consists of the organization's operations, information system and management. The theoretical part is followed by empirical research, which will accept or reject the set hypotheses. In the period from April 11 to June 20 2022., research was conducted using the survey questionnaire method on knowledge of the roles and importance of business intelligence in private and public companies in northern Croatia. The aim of the poll was to find out how many and to what extent public and private organizations are familiar with the concept of business intelligence, which business intelligence tools they use and how important they consider business intelligence to be.