Architecturing Business Intelligence for SMEs

Business Intelligence (BI) promotes a rational and scientific approach to management by providing timely and relevant information to decision-makers at all levels of an organization. Despite the level of technical maturity it has achieved over the years and the advantages it has to offer in terms of overall efficiency, BI is still far from becoming mainstream in business, especially in case of SMEs (Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises). In this paper, we will discuss some of the obstacles preventing the adoption of BI technology at a larger scale by the SMEs and briefly discuss the architecture of a BI system which is tailored to comply better with their operational and structural profiles. We largely focus on the issues relevant to facilitating a smoother transition from the traditional ERP or OLTP systems which may be already in use in the organization to BI technology rather than the BI technology itself.