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Unlike static stand-alone systems

Unlike static stand-alone systems, a dynamic, integrated BI decision-support environment cannot be built in one big bang. Data and functionality must be rolled out in iterative releases, and each deployment is likely to trigger new requirements for the next release, as shown in Figure 0.3.

Figure 0.3 highlights other major differences between BI applications and stand-alone systems.

- BI applications are mostly driven by business opportunity rather than business need.

- BI applications implement a cross-organizational decision-support strategy rather than departmental decision-support silos.

- BI decision-support requirements are mostly strategic information requirements rather than operational functional requirements.

- Analysis of BI projects emphasizes business analysis rather than system analysis, and analysis is the most important activity when developing a BI decision-support environment.

- Ongoing BI application release evaluations promote iterative development and the software release concept rather than big-bang development.

The Cross-Organizational Development Approach
With the expansion of e-business comes an increasing demand for cross-organizational integration. This integration does not refer merely to bridging old systems across different platforms using enterprise application integration (EAI) middleware. Instead, it refers to:

- Information consolidation

- Information integration

- Information integrity

- Seamless business functionality

- Streamlined organizational business processes

Taken from : Business Intelligence Roadmap- By Larissa T. Moss, Shaku Atre