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September 27, 1999

A Closer Look:
E-Business Meets Business Intelligence

By John Foley

John Foley ithin the big overlapping circles of IT and business, there are lots of smaller circles, which are themselves overlapping. We're reminded of that often at InformationWeek, as reporters frequently cross paths even though they have different areas of specialty and work different beats. The latest example of this-and one that every business and IT manager should be thinking about-is the intersection of E-business and business intelligence.

Here's the buzzword for it-E-Business Intelligence-but more important, here's what's happening. E-business is about applying technology to create new channels of distribution and communication with business partners and suppliers, to establish new contact points for delivering products and services to customers, and to support and interact with those customers. Business intelligence involves collecting, managing, mining, and analyzing the data generated by an enterprise, resulting in information with strategic value to those who possess it. Increasingly, companies are coming up with creative ways to link those efforts.

Senior writers Rick Whiting, who covers databases and business intelligence, and Beth Bacheldor, our business-to-consumer Internet reporter, touch on this trend in a story on p. 26. Vendors from a variety of backgrounds, sensing an opportunity, are delivering products that make it easier to package and distribute a business' "intelligence" to partners and customers.

We first saw the makings of this trend a couple of years ago when businesses added Web technology to data warehouses and data marts, opening those repositories to select partners. The concept is catching on more broadly in the form of business-intelligence portals, supply-chain data warehouses, reports that are broadcast electronically, and data-analysis tools and applets on Web sites. The data gleaned from a company's databases becomes a product, service, or competitive differentiator that has value outside the company.

It's probably true that most businesses still aren't great at leveraging their business intelligence for internal purposes. If so, then it's doubly true when it comes to E-business intelligence. But that's where the opportunity comes in-and that's why forward-looking business and IT professionals might want to start thinking about ways to capitalize on the possibilities.

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