Operational business intelligence is an emerging discipline that helps organizations make better day-to-day decisions in the context of key business processes, according to William McKnight, partner, information management with Richardson, Texas based Lucidity Consulting Group. Rather than just the post-operational data collection and analysis typically associated with BI, this discipline integrates BI into operational environments to deliver relevant information, often in near real time, whenever and wherever it's needed. This enables BI to be better integrated into call centers, ERP systems or other business processes and enterprise applications.

Operational BI also has significant implications for IT professionals tasked with designing the architecture and deploying the technology, according to McKnight.

In this 20-minute podcast, appropriate for IT and business professionals, listeners will get a complete introduction to operational BI benefits and related technology concepts:

• Get expert explanations of important operational BI concepts and learn the primary benefits of implementing operational BI.
• Find out how operational BI specifically differs from typical BI implementations to date -- and discover what this means for IT professionals.
• Hear more about the technology and architecture required to support operational BI programs.