The Business Without Intelligence: No Metadata, No Results

by Adrienne Tannenbaum

Organizations striving for improvement and competitive leadership often perceive business intelligence (BI) as a new technology and a new set of business processes with associated methodologies. But BI is nothing new; it is merely the identification of an information-focused organization and the enterprise's optimal use of its information. All businesses have the backbone required for BI and must become cognizant of their unique information-specific privileges. Few realize where information fits within their BI lifelines; even fewer realize that metadata -- the information required to identify, understand, locate, source, and access this information -- underpins this information lifeline.