Purpose of businesses

Finally, this text makes a simple assumption regarding the purpose of for-profit businesses. The purpose of businesses is to generate profits. The best companies achieve superior profitability over time. They do this through strategic positioning, meaning performing different activities from rivals' or performing similar activities in a different way. Specifically, to achieve profits companies can focus two different types of activities. The first is for companies to provide goods or services with greater value, charge higher prices, thereby increasing revenue. The second type of activity aims to provide goods or services at a lower cost, reduce costs, thereby increasing profitability.

This approach is also useful for existing systems. The goal of this book is to present a way to think about BI systems. Companies and their business environment constantly change. Competitive businesses must change in order to remain viable. BI systems allow companies to determine if the environment is changing and if their strategy will remain effective in the new landscape. BI should be considered a constantly evolving system and the process presented in this book should be applied iteratively in order to continuously update the BI system.