几乎所有的企业都在寻找能够充分利用其在数据库和数据仓库上的投资,建立能够帮助企业决策人员制定能够获取竞争优势的系统。据某些评估机构的保守估计:到2003年,业务智能软件的市场有望达到150亿美金,其中大部分花销将用在购买或建立分析型应用上。但是,在企业真正开始购买或建立其分析型应用之前,有一些重要问题是必须仔细加以考虑的,不然的话企业的投资将很难得到预期的回报。以下就是这些问题以及应对它们的基本出发点:①分析型应用是否能够为企业带来全面竞争优势?企业决定建立或购买分析型应用的最优先要考虑的问题是:该应用是否能够带来全面的竞争优势,还是仅仅能够支持某种简单的企业运营需求?比如,像预算和销售报表就不是获取全面竞争优势的必要应用。一个真正有效的分析型应用,通过进行配置应该能够满足企业的实际需要。因此,在考虑分析型应用时,正确的选择 Almost all businesses are looking for ways to capitalize on their investment in databases and data warehouses and to build systems that help business decision-makers create competi- tive advantages. According to conservative estimates by some rating agencies, by the year 2003, the market for business intelligence software is expected to reach 15 billion U.S. dollars, most of which will be spent on purchasing or building analytic applications. However, before the business really begins to buy or build its analytic applications, there are some important issues that must be carefully considered, or it will be hard for business investments to get the desired return. These are the basic starting points for addressing these issues as well as: (1) Can analytical analytics bring an overall competitive advantage to your organization? The top priority for businesses deciding to build or buy analytical analytics is whether the application will lead to comprehensive Competitive advantage, or just to support some kind of simple business operations needs? For example, such as budget and sales reports are not necessary to obtain a comprehensive competitive advantage of the application. A truly effective analytical application, through the configuration should be able to meet the actual needs of enterprises. Therefore, the right choice when considering analytic applications