| Business intelligence, decision support system, and | | | | An important consideration is all technology involved: all |
| informational environment are some terms to name | | | | data sources (data-origin information systems) to be |
| the efforts to convert all transactional data generated | | | | exploited, how all this data must be extracted, how all |
| by daily activities of some organizations into valuable | | | | this data must be converted, summarized and shown |
| and timely information to make accurate decisions, | | | | to final applications (and users), how often this data |
| measure the performance of this organization in | | | | must be recovered from its origins, and so on. |
| known indicators inside this organization, or benchmark | | | | This is only a partial description of the "logical" of |
| this company against competitors with the same | | | | "intangible" side of efforts to build a BI platform. The |
| indicators. | | | | "tangible" side of a BI platform is all necessary |
| This definition is a very high-level one. The experience | | | | resources to allocate all retrieved data, like disc space |
| through many BI projects indicates that the process | | | | and administration; all processing resources to |
| involves every single part of the company to be | | | | manipulate all retrieved data and all network resources |
| analyzed, it means: data producers (every involved | | | | to transport all necessary data and to show all |
| data-cruncher system and user), data analyzers, | | | | obtained information. |
| information consumers, decision-makers and IT | | | | Also, it is necessary to administer all these resources, |
| multidisciplinary teams to achieve the ultimate goal: give | | | | secure and maintain these resources and document |
| to all the appropriate tools to make the most | | | | the obtained platform in order to provide the best |
| successful decisions. | | | | information and decision services. |