Héctor Izquierdo, IE Business School

Every week a business school professor, an expert in his or her field, defines a key term on FT Lexicon, our online economics, business and finance glossary.

Our professor this week

Héctor Izquierdo is professor of management control at IE Business School in Spain where he teaches on a variety of programmes including the Executive MBA, Masters in Management and global MBA. In addition to IE, Prof Izquierdo has also taught at Icade in Spain, Uned in Spain, Bem in France, St Xavier’s College in India and NDU in Lebanon. Prof Izquierdo’s professional life has taken him to work in 25 countries, in areas as diverse as the Middle East, former republics of the Soviet Union and countries in the Far East. He is also chief internal auditor of Union Fenosa Gas Group.

Prof Izquierdo’s research interests lie in the relationship between economic and competitive intelligence and the management control systems in corporations.

He has complemented his academic experience with the writing of case studies and articles on topics such as the integration of management control systems and internal auditing in organisations.

Prof Izquierdo has chosen to define the term “business intelligence”

Why Prof Izquierdo thinks the term business intelligence is important

“Understanding the term ‘business intelligence’ is important because it helps companies to take proper decisions,” he says. He believes it is important to look at a range of data with the purpose of detecting behavioural patterns. This range of data will make it possible to anticipate future behaviour, says Prof Izquierdo. To view Prof Izquierdo’s definition click on the linked terms.