|
by David R. Brousell, MA Editorial Staff   Many information technology ideas start out small and end up big. In just the last two decades or so, the concept of material requirements planning grew into ERP and then the notion of extended ERP as so-called integrated software suites combining supply chain, customer management, and other functions made its way into the market. What one might call scope creep has also visited the realm of product design and development technology. Born in the land of CAD and product data management, the idea of PLM has come to encompass a broad view of a product's lifecycle, including its role in the concept of a demand-driven value chain. In more recent years, the idea of business intelligence technology has similarly stretched itself into what some are now calling business performance management -- the notion that BI and associated technologies like report writers have a much broader role to play within a company as a whole. As Jim Davis, SAS Institute's senior vice president and chief marketing officer, described it at SAS's fourth annual manufacturing conference in April, BI should now be thought of as an Enterprise Technology Platform encompassing data integration, intelligent storage, and, of course, analytics. [Click to continue] |