Recently Oracle announced that Wal-Mart, the worlda??s largest retailer, has selected OracleA? Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus to provide comprehensive data intelligence and analysis from across Wal-Marta??s operations.
This is significant news for a number of reasons. First, because it shows that BI can be a strategic deployment. Wal-Mart plans to use the system to administer its logistics, transportation, category management, finance, human resources, real estate, merchandising, store and club operations and other business resources, within Wal-Mart and Sama??s Clubs. I have pointed out for years, and also in this blog, that BI only starts to become strategic, if you apply the concept of a??horizontal alignmenta??. BI starts to make sense if you analyze data and events spanning multiple functional domains. Walmart is a shining example of this. No tactical, silo deployments, but a strong standard across the organization.
Second, the press release states that the announcement builds on Wal-Marta??s strategic relationship with Oracle. BI is not a separate category anymore, but should be seen within a complete ecosystem of business applications.
Wal-Mart sets a new example in best practices.
frank
