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Introduction to Competitive Advantage in Information Systems

The Business Intelligence Toolkit

Learning Objectives

  1. Know the tools that are available to turn data into information.
  2. Identify the key areas where businesses leverage data mining.
  3. Understand some of the conditions under which analytical models can fail.
  4. Recognize major categories of artificial intelligence and understand how organizations are leveraging this technology.

So far we've discussed where data can come from, and how we can get data into a form where we can use it. But how, exactly, do firms turn that data into information? That's where the various software tools of business intelligence (BI) and analytics come in. Potential products in the business intelligence toolkit range from simple spreadsheets to ultrasophisticated data mining packages leveraged by teams employing "rocket-science" mathematics.