Managing a business has never been easy.  Trying economic conditions make it even harder.  The challenge is to do more with less and to make better decisions than competitors.  Having immediate access to current, actionable information can make a huge difference.  But, you can’t get the information you need from the current volumes of ERP production data.  This is the reason why spending on Business Intelligence (BI) solutions has continued to grow during a severe economic downturn.  Executives cannot afford to make decisions based on financial statements that compare last month’s results to a budget created up to a year ago.  They need information that helps them quickly answer the basic questions: What still works?  What continues to sell?  How can cash be conserved?  What costs can be cut without causing long-term harm?

Business intelligence systems provide the ability to answer these critical questions by turning the massive amount of data from production systems into a format that is current, actionable, and easy to understand.  They provide information that is decision ready.  They allow you to analyze current and long-term trends, alert you instantly to opportunities and problems, and give you continuous feedback on the effectiveness of your decisions.  Business Intelligence is not a new idea.  The largest and best-managed organizations in the world have been making use of it for more than a decade.  Along the way, the organizations that pioneered Business Intelligence made an important discovery – the path to true business intelligence passes through a data warehouse.