Business Intelligence : A Comprehensive Approach to Information Needs, Technologies and Culture

This book examines the managerial dimensions of business intelligence (BI) systems. It develops a set of guidelines for value creation by implementing business intelligence systems and technologies. In particular the book looks at BI as a process - driven by a mix of human and technological capabilities - to serve complex information needs in building insights and providing aid in decision making. After an introduction to the key concepts of BI and neighboring areas of information processing, the book looks at the complexity and multidimensionality of BI. It tackles both data integration and information integration issues. Bodies of knowledge and other widely accepted collections of experience are presented and turned into lessons learned. Following a straightforward introduction to the processes and technologies of BI the book embarks on BI maturity and agility, the components, drivers and inhibitors of BI culture and soft BI factors like attention, sense and trust. Eventually the book attempts to provide a holistic view on business intelligence, possible structures and tradeoffs and embarks to provide an outlook on possible developments in BI and analytics.