|
Firms in process industries have made significant investments in information technology to increase the efficiency of their operations and supply chains. One side effect of these investments has been the creation of vast stores of valuable data. But most firms are overlooking or underutilizing this potential goldmine: they're missing opportunities to analyze and redeploy their data to drive the next stage of innovation and competitive advantage. To take full advantage of this data, firms need a new generation of business intelligence (BI) tools and applications to integrate cross-enterprise, inter-enterprise
and externally available information with processes to achieve insight, transparency and competitive advantage.
Firms in process industries such as oil and gas, chemicals, pulp and paper, or mining today face multiplying business challenges driven by phenomena such as globalization,
unpredictable input costs, fluctuating exchange rates and geopolitical instability. In this rapidly changing environment, companies can't afford to be satisfied with traditional business intelligence systems that merely report on "what happened." BI systems need to answer more timely questions: "what is happening now?" and "what
will happen in the future?" Accurate answers to these questions for all stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization, will drive superior performance and competitive advantage in the future.
|
