News - 28 Jul: Business Intelligence:Where Is BI Heading?

Stuart Lauchlan, ComputerWeekly.com

Despite all the money invested in IT systems over the years, a study by IBM reveals that two-thirds of UK mid-market businesses still rely on error-prone manual processes when it comes to dealing with data, the lifeblood of any effective 21st century business. It is a problem that business intelligence (BI) tools were supposed to have solved.

It is not just mid-market firms that have not yet come to grips with the issue. Enterprise-level organisations seem equally adrift. The conspicuous failure of risk assessment throughout the financial services sector in recent months is testament to that.

• An intelligent investment
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• Making BI succeed

Research firm Gartner defines the BI lifecycle as three distinct stages: organising, cleansing and collecting data; delivering that data in a consistent and appropriate form; and using that data for effective decision-making. It is at the last stage where things are still falling down. Most companies still fail to link BI to "the last mile" of business decision-making, which means all that investment in BI technologies is going to waste.

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