At first blush, that would seem to be the territory of database reporting tools, and to some extent it is, except that most corporate information does not reside in structured databases. In fact, a great deal of it is unstructured information such as documents or email or, even harder to pin down, it's somewhere out on the World Wide Web waiting to be found. Perhaps it's in a newsfeed or it can be found in a business data- base such as Dun & Bradstreet, but wherever it is, it is important for compa- nies to be able to make use of and share with others in the enterprise. This type of information-gathering falls within the broad category of software known as "business intelligence" tools, which allow employees to learn about a particular subject such as how the sales department is performing, what customers complain about most or what your closest competitor is doing. This article looks at the range of business intelligence software and provides some examples of how companies are using this information to run their businesses more efficiently.
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