Business intelligence on a budget

Business intelligence tools are an essential part of any enterprise. But with the economy still in a downturn, IT organizations aren't rushing to buy newly created BI software. Instead they are digging deeper to use existing tools from IBM, Cognos, SAS, SAP Business Objects and Microsoft Business Intelligence.

"Usually people have more tools than they need, and that can be distracting," Anthony Abbattista, vice president of technology solutions at Allstate Insurance Co. and a former business intelligence consultant, tells ComputerWorld.

Organizations end up with "different pockets of people doing similar analysis with different tools," and that leads to needless confusion, he said. His recommendation: Consolidate, and be aggressive about it. "Get to the minimum number of tools you need to get the job done."

With that advice in mind, make sure you know what's in your arsenal and how to use it without spending more of your precious budget dollars.

For more on using BI:
- check out this ComputerWorld.com article

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