Data can be your organization's greatest asset. Whether it comes from day-to-day operations, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, data warehouses, operational data stores, or other sources, it is the key to understanding and managing your performance. Used effectively, it tells you what you must do to succeed, how you are doing relative to plan, and why.

But reaping the benefits of data isn't easy. Data is typically fragmented, often incomplete, and not readily available in a form that can be used effectively by the people who need it for decision making. To realize the benefits of data, and empower business users, IT must be able to access data from all sources, no matter where it resides. Only then can they deliver information in terms that business users understand and can trust.

The first key to realizing the potential of your data is implementing a solution that is built for open data access, ensuring a broad information reach. This paper explains why this is the essential starting point for accessing, integrating, and organizing data to create a single business view of your enterprise that you can use to drive better performance.