The business environment is increasingly competitive, global and deregulated. Because of this business must be aggressive when trying to find ways to differentiate themselves and gain competitive advantage. One of the most critical concepts that enable companies to achieve these goals is business intelligence (BI). Business intelligence is a rapidly growing market. According to the Palo Alto Management Group, the business intelligence market is worth approximately $70 billion (IBM, 1998, p. 1). In the days before global competition and 24/7 operation via technology, business intelligence consisted of a call of tools designed to query and analyze reports when information was needed from databases. These tools were typically used in combination with such things as contracts or spreadsheets.
TodayÆs business intelligence tools are of a different class. TodayÆs leading organizations use business intelligence portals. Business intelligence portals are a ôsuite of highly integrated decision support tools that provide employees, customers and partners the ability to access and analyze corporate information via the Internet. These BI portals have enough momentum that theyÆre going to accelerate changes in the BI marketplaceö (Rowe, 2000, p. 14). Business intelligence is a process that involves ôthe gathering, management, and analysis of data for the purpose of turning that data into useful information which is then distributed throughout an enterprise and used to improve decision makingö (IBM, 1998, p. 1). On one level business intelligence is coordinated with customer support management and knowledge management. TodayÆs businesses exist in a global competitive environment where sound decision making can often be the key to success. Business intelligence is designed to improve decision making ability company-wide.
IBM is one leader in the BI market. IBM has recently developed a BI Portfolio that invol
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