Business leaders and employees make informed decisions regarding their businesses by applying “Business Intelligence Technology”. This technology has tools and applications that help in gathering, analyzing and storing data. In essence, BI is used to analyze and organize raw data. Online analytical processing, data mining, querying and reporting are activities, which are conducted through BI tools. SMBs stay ahead of their competition by making accurate decisions that are derived from BI tools. In this paper, is a summary of the article, “Uncomplicating Business Intelligence for SMBs” by ZIFF DAVIS.

Companies use BI in. surfacing new opportunities, cutting costs and identifying inefficient processes that need of re-engineering. Challenges that come with BI can be avoided if the data that are fed to BI application is clean and consistent. A good example of a BI tool used worldwide is Microsoft Excel since it permits users to calculate, present and display numerical data. however, it is a poor BI tool (ZIFF DAVIS 2).

Both large organizations and SMBs benefit from using BI technology. SMBs can greatly utilize low-cost, easy-to-use, easy-to-deploy BI options. Some examples are. desktop-analysis tools, quick-to-deploy software-as-a-service and scaled-down suites. BI tools become friendly to SMBs through novel technologies in the form of open-source, Web 2.0 interface, new visualization technology and in-memory technology.&nbsp.

BI tools are increasingly acquiring the characteristics of being affordable, fast to deploy and easy to use (ZIFF DAVIS 5).