Intelligent Enterprise

There's nothing better than a nice business intelligence bullet list.

OK, maybe that's an overstatement. But they're nice. And in case you haven't seen it yet, I've got one for you.

One of our most popular stories so far for the month of July is one from our sister publication InformationWeek. It shares tips on how to leverage business intelligence tools. Judging by the traffic it's gotten already, you might've read it. But if not, here's a quick rundown:

- Before investing, understand your pain points. Why are you investing in BI?

- Make sure your data is in a usable format. If it isn't, there are middleware tools that can get it there.

- Generally speaking, there's usually a vendor out there that can meet your specific BI needs. But remember to consider BI applications that are outsourced or that you develop in-house.

- Don't overlook tools that "bolt on" to your database structure -- assuming it's stable enough. It might save you money.

- Real-time reports are great, but they're a serious drag on processing power. Use them when your situation demands them, but try to minimize the number of real-time reports you create.

Here's that link again. Check out the full story for details.

Briefly moving on to other things: Big news came out of Accenture this week. You know Accenture as the multi-billion dollar consulting powerhouse. That's accurate enough. But now the folks at Accenture wants you to know them as your one-stop source for information management services. The firm says it will invest $100 million dollars to beef up its ability to deliver services related to business intelligence, content management, enterprise performance management and secure information management.

Primarily this interests me because it's a serious endorsement from the consulting industry on just how important business intelligence has become. And I'm betting Accenture's rivals will follow suit. There's just too much opportunity out there. Accenture estimates that the information management services market will swell to beyond $27 billion by 2007. Those dollars will come from organizations like yours, of course.

As always, to stay on top of these and other developments in BI, stick with us right here.