Business intelligence (BI) allows organizations to integrate applications and databases essential to users and enables analysis of information to optimize decision-making. The hitch is in finding the right combination of information accessibility and processing power to effectively support BI across the extended enterprise.

This paper will help CIOs answer the following questions:

• How simple is it to answer event-driven or ad hoc questions based on current systems and data?
• What proportion of time is spent on collection and input of data as opposed to analysis?
• Is the IT department consumed with running queries, reports, and obtaining information from disparate databases?
• How easily and quickly can information be disseminated to the people who need it, in the format they want?
• Is it easy to identify trends in the organization's performance?
• Does senior management have a single view of information?
• Can information be distributed to customers, employees, and partners in a consistent fashion?