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Top2. Business Intelligence
Today organizations compete in a hyper competitive business environment characterized by a massive influx of data. Information has gained significance as a key resource in organizations and it is undisputed that effective information use is a source of major competitive advantage (Bucher, Gericke, & Sigg, 2009). In this dynamic environment, business intelligence (BI) is seen as a critical solution that will help organizations leverage information to make informed, intelligent business decisions to survive in the business world (Jordan & Ellen, 2009). BI describes the concepts and methods used to improve decision making using fact based systems (Watson & Wixom, 2007).
Using BI initiatives, businesses are gaining insights from growing volumes of data generated by applications such as customer relationship management, supply-chain management, and web analytics. BI enables access to diverse data, manipulation and transformation of these data, and provide business managers and analysts the ability to conduct appropriate analyses and perform actions (Turban, Sharda, Aronson, & King, 2008). As such, organizations are eager to adopt these technologies to take advantage of the power of BI. BI is seen as a critical solution that is a necessity to survive in the business world (Bucher, Gericke, & Sigg, 2009). According to a survey of over 4000 Chief Information Officers conducted by Gartner Group, revealed that business intelligence is rated as the number one technology priority in organizations (Strange, 2009). A similar survey of CIO’s by IBM revealed that BI is the top visionary plan for enhancing enterprise competitiveness (IBM, 2009).