Business Intelligence Competency Centers: A Team Approach to Maximizing Competitive Advantage

Foreword

The world of Business Intelligence (BI) is changing, and the ideas in this book can help organizations address the transition. Business Intelligence has been with us (under several different names) for several decades, and one could argue that it has always been useful. However, in the past it has also been somewhat "marginal"—addressed to important but somewhat esoteric business problems, and rarely visible either to senior executives or to external customers or business partners. There clearly have been exceptions to this pattern, but for the most part BI and its practitioners have dwelled in the "back rooms" of organizations.

For an increasing number of organizations today, however, this is no longer the case. Based on research supported by SAS and Intel, I have concluded that the leading edge of BI involves companies in which analytics are central to their strategy and competitive advantage. These firms and organizations have employed sophisticated analytics and fact-based decision making to drive and support competition based on one of several possible strategic capabilities. The retailers Wal-Mart and Amazon, for example, have used analytics to optimize supply chain management. Travel and entertainment firms such as Harrah's and Marriott have used analytics to support customer loyalty and revenue management. In the financial services industry, Capital One and Progressive have focused on the analysis-based pricing and marketing of their products. In professional sports, ...