Over the last decade, we have witnessed an increasing use of Business Intelligence (BI) solutions that allow business people to query, understand, and analyze their business data in order to make better decisions. Traditionally, BI applications allow management and decision-makers to acquire useful knowledge about the performance and problems of business from the data of their organization by means of a variety of technologies, such as data warehousing, data mining, business performance management, OLAP, and periodical business reports. Research in these areas has produced consolidated solutions, techniques, and methodologies, and there are a variety of commercial products available that are based on these results.
Business Intelligence Applications and the Web: Models, Systems and Technologies summarizes current research advances in BI and the Web, emphasizing research solutions, techniques, and methodologies which combine both areas in the interest of building better BI solutions. This comprehensive collection aims to emphasize the interconnections that exist among the two research areas and to highlight the benefits of combined use of BI and Web practices, which so far have acted rather independently, often in cases where their joint application would have been sensible.