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BI ( Business intelligence) enables the exploitation of a company’s data in order to improve the decision making and to anticipate the action to take so as to beat its competitors in the same activity.
BI assists the transformation of the stocked data into relevant information with a view to doing analysis and reporting (performance indicators). This information is generated not only for the Management but also for the company as a whole.
These “decision” tools are fed by the extraction of data coming from multiple sources: production, administration, sales, marketing, stocks and economic data.

The following functions are possible:
  analysis and performance management of the company
  the highlighting and surveillance of performance indicators (KPI)
  circulation of secured information within or outside the company, and on demand
  development of supply plans, management reporting, budgetary control and performance indicators
  situation simulation
  decision assistance

The BI market is making progress thanks to advances in new technology, and to IT architecture such as the Internet, extranet, client/server.
These solutions have several functions which satisfy the customers’ complex demands. They have evolved to become strategic tools of the company which improve productivity and output.