Executives serving U.S. companies with revenues of over $500 million report that they are faced with greater volumes of data, more decisions to make and less time to make them. Decision-making data sources average three or more, and the amount of business data is doubling or tripling each year.

Decisions are driven by business intelligence. These same executives believe they need to significantly strengthen their analytic and business intelligence capabilities to drive business growth. Consequently, more companies are re-examining the ways they create knowledge, and their analytical and decisioning processes.

Enterprise data warehouses (EDW) are rapidly gaining acceptance among companies that excel in IT-enabled -business leadership. In fact, an EDW is becoming a competitive imperative. Industry leaders worldwide rely on their EDWs.

• Dell Computer uses its EDW to answer any question, any time, anywhere, with the correct answer
• Barclays Bank consolidated disparate data warehousing platforms and enjoyed considerable cost savings
• Harrah's Entertainment dramatically improved customer loyalty using database marketing and business analytics

More and more businesses want their decisions to be based on a complete view of the customer, the supply chain and the business as a whole. Leading-edge decision makers recognize the value of an EDW:

• Faster, more timely and relevant decisions are routine
• Data is centralized and continuously refreshed
• Better decisions are made because of a single, enterprise view
• Consistent, actionable information is available across all business functions