Business intelligence applications have made an impact on organizations around the world, enabling companies to have more insight into their business then ever before. Despite the vast benefits already being realized, there are still more opportunities to be leveraged within each individual business intelligence environment. The mix of enterprise reporting with business intelligence has made it possible to reap true competitive advantage from obtaining and sharing business information. All that remains is to make that convergence happen within the enterprise.

Up until recently, if a company needed to perform ad-hoc querying, reporting, or analysis, it bought a specific product for each purpose. This had the effect of creating silos of business intelligence (BI) technology within the organization, as each division or department pursued its own information-handling priorities. Add to that today’s pressure to comply with government and industry reporting standards such as OFAC and the Patriot Act and the need for informational consistency is glaringly apparent.

As enterprise reporting and business intelligence have converged, with products that integrate comprehensive BI functions in one enterprise suite, organizations can standardize on a single technology for all business intelligence needs. And perhaps even more importantly, it has made the handling and use of corporate information a competitive advantage in business.

However, success with enterprise business intelligence does to rely on the product functionality alone, rather it is something you achieve as an organization, by being able to easily ask and answer the most difficult questions. It depends as much on corporate innovation as on the vendor, whose technology and services, excellent though they may be, merely facilitate the process.

1. Highest-ROI applications
2. Maximum end-user participation
3. Ability to meet all data requirements
4. Maximum scalability and manageability
5. Minimum total cost of ownership