IT departments have had a troubled relationship with the business units around them for about as long as IT has existed as a distinct entity. This is an old story – but not that old, which is part of the problem. Business managers, from department heads to the C-suite, speak a common language. IT managers and professionals speak a different language, often mysterious to outsiders. But, suggests one industry observer, business intelligence (BI) can help provide a vehicle to bring IT and business units together.

IT departments only came into being within the last 60 years or so, and were few and far between until more recently than that. But as Claudia Imhoff points out at B eye Network, this relatively short time has been enough for lack of communication between IT and other business units to become the stuff of legend.

The problem is not just that IT, at most firms, is a "staff" rather than "line" function. The same is true of, say, transportation. But while most business managers don't know the ins and outs of transportation operations, they can at least imagine learning how to manage trucks and loading docks, and understand how stand-alone transportation firms make money.

When it comes to IT functions such as data architecting versus database management, not so much. What exactly IT does remains mysterious to many of its internal customers within a firm.

True, as Imhoff notes, that some things are getting better. Today's generation of managers and executives grew up with consumer computing. They probably own an iPad, and appreciate what it does even if they don't know any details of the iOS operating system.

But it remains first and foremost the responsibility of IT managers and professionals to learn to speak the language of business. Imhoff points with approval to one chief technology officer who "never used technology terms when discussing the needs of the business."

Imhoff also suggests that business intelligence (BI) technology can help bring IT and its internal business customers closer together. Many of the key concerns of BI solutions design, such as dashboard configuration and data visualization, are all about making the technology transparent to users, so that they can concentrate on the business questions they need to ask.

The "consumerization of IT" can be and often is overhyped, but this is where it is relevent. Users don't need a manual to navigate an iPad; should they need a manual to navigate a BI dashboard?