Letter from the Editorial Director
Welcome to volume 20 of TDWI’s What Works: Best Practices in Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing. TDWI is pleased to bring you this compendium of case studies, lessons from the experts, Q&A, and best practices, all collected into one volume that gives you powerful insight into the industry.
TDWI was formed more than a decade ago to provide data warehousing professionals a single source for education, information, and community. Over the years, our audience has expanded to include BI and business professionals, changing the focus and content of the articles you will now find in What Works. Celebrating a decade of excellence as the premier provider of in-depth, high-quality education and research in the BI and DW industry (online, onsite, and through more than 20 events worldwide), TDWI produces resourceful publications that strive to provide our readership with practical education and current industry trends.
As always, What Works covers the spectrum of BI and DW solutions, from BI initiatives that increase retailers’ sales power to analytics that continually improve airlines’ safety. In addition to these case studies, What Works includes technology perspectives and lessons learned from leading experts in the services, software, and hardware vendor community. Our enlightening Q&A section provides these experts’ answers to the questions they hear most often, complemented by insight from an independent consultant. You will also find an excerpt from TDWI’s most recent research report, "Enterprise Business Intelligence: Strategies and Technologies for Deploying BI on an Enterprise Scale," by Wayne Eckerson, TDWI’s director of research and services, and Cindi Howson, president of ASK, a BI consultancy. This report examines current usage of BI tools and technologies, and describes strategies for bringing BI to the enterprise.
Our feature article is written by TDWI’s director of education, Dave Wells, together with Dan Merriman, president of Chapin Consulting, and addresses TDWI’s current focus: bringing business and IT together. Incorporating commentary from thought leaders in the field, this article reviews the need for business and IT to work closely together and sketches a five-part action plan for BI professionals, who are uniquely equipped to lead the business/IT charge.
Finally, this issue also includes the winners from our annual Best Practices Awards, coveted recognition for organizations that have demonstrated industry leadership in developing and implementing world-class BI and DW solutions.
We hope you enjoy this collection of case studies, best practices, and insight from the experts, and we look forward to your comments. If there is anything we can do to make this publication more valuable to you, please let me know. I would personally like to thank the companies who shared their stories and successes, their technology insights, and the lessons they have learned.
Please enjoy What Works, volume 20.
Denelle Hanlon
Editorial Director, What Works
TDWI
[email protected]
This article originally appeared in the issue of .