Celina Olszak evolved into solutions that can be used in strategic planning, predictive modelling, forecasting, monitoring operations, and studying the profitability of products (Negash and Gray, 2008; Davenport and Harris, 2007). It is noted that although BI is frequently defined in the literature, there is no universal explanation of BI term (Clavier, Loriet and Loggerenberg, 2012). The analysis of different articles, papers and reports shows that BI is mainly identified with:
tools, technologies, and software products. BI is used to collect, integrate, analyze and make data available (Reinschmidt and Francoise, 2000). It includes: data warehousing, data mining and OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing). Data warehousing is a key technology, integrating heterogenic data from different . information sources for analytical purposes (Inmon, Strauss and Neushloss, 2008) Hence, it is assumed that the main tasks to be faced by BI include: intelligent exploration, integration, aggregation and a multidimensional analysis of data originating from various information resources (Sauter, 2010);
knowledge management. BI is the capability of the organization to explain, plan, predict, solve problems and learn in order to increase organizational knowledge (Wells, 2008). BI is assumed to be a solution that is responsible for transcription of data into information and knowledge (Negash and Grey, 2008);
decision support systems. BI is considered as a new generation of decision support systems. They differ from previous management information systems in, first of all, their wider thematic range, multivariate analysis, semi-structured data originating from different sources and multidimensional data presentation (O’Brien and Marakas, 2007; Wells, 2008; Negash, 2004; Baaras and Kemper, 2008; Olszak and Ziemba, 2004);
dashboards. Dashboards are becoming a preferred method for delivering and displaying BI to users. They are more visual and intuitive, and typically provide linkages that enable an immediate action to be taken (Ballarat et al, 2006);
new working culture with information - BI constitutes an important upturn in techniques of working with information (Liautaud and Hammond, 2001). It means specific philosophy and methodology that would refer to working with information and knowledge, open communication and knowledge sharing (Negash and Grey, 2008);
process. The process constitutes of activities to gather, select, aggregate, analyze, and distribute information (Jourdan, Rainer and Marschall, 2007). Some of these activities are the responsibility of the BI staff, while others are the joint responsibility of the BI staff and the business units;
analytics. “Analytics means the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions” (Davenport and Harris, 2007);
Competitive Intelligence (CI). “The goal of CI is to provide a balanced picture of the environment to the decision makers” (Sauter, 2010).
The issue of BI-based organization combines the mentioned above scopes in one whole, where challenges of technical implementation are replaced by questions of business value, e.g. competitiveness, improvement of business processes, better decisions.
3. Business Intelligence-based organization The above discussion about BI permits to formulate the basic assumptions underlying the idea of BI-based organization. It should be mentioned that, in the past, an organization was described by many different terms (e.g., intelligent organization, knowledge-based organization, learning organization). Due to the rapid development of various BI tools, a term “BI-based organization” has recently appeared. Most likely it was first used by Wixom and Watson (2010). According to these authors “BI has moved from being a contributor to organizational success to being a prerequisite for it; indeed for many firms, BI is a prerequisite for even competing in the marketplace. We call these firms BI-based organizations because of the critical role that BI plays”. Developing this idea, it should be considered that the BI-based organization is focused on carrying out fundamental changes in business through BI tools. In order to achieve success and competitive advantage it needs to scan not only its internal environment, but also its competitive external one. What is especially crucial, the BI-based organization is able to transform information into strategic knowledge and intelligence. This allows for the identification of the opportunities and threats, which may occur on the market, while
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