Business Intelligence (BI) software takes the mass of information generated by a company's various operational data sources, integrates it, analyzes it, and presents findings in the form of reports, alerts, and dashboards. These reports, alerts, and dashboards provide a more accurate, actionable view of a business than is possible without BI.

The success of a BI solution ultimately is determined by how well it helps both business and technical users throughout an organization meet their mission critical goals such as:

• Achieving or surpassing revenue numbers.
• Finding opportunities to reduce costs throughout the organization.
• Maximizing profitability by identifying the most profitable customers, products, services, or programs.