01900nas a2200133   4500008004100000022001400041245004600055210004600101260004200147520150200189100002001691700001901711856003601730       2009                        eng d  a1913-610200aEnabling Geospatial Business Intelligence0 aEnabling Geospatial Business Intelligence  aOttawabTalent First Networkc09/20093 aRecently, interest in the huge potential of Geospatial BI has increased. It aims at combining geographic information system (GIS) and business intelligence (BI) technologies. Geospatial BI combines spatial analysis and map visualization with proven BI tools in order to better support the corporate data analysis process and to help companies make more informed decisions. 

BI is a business management term which refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information about company operations. BI applications are usually used to better understand historical, current and future aspects of business operations. BI applications typically offer ways to mine database- and spreadsheet-centric data to produce graphical, table-based and other types of analytics regarding business operations. BI systems give companies a more comprehensive knowledge of the factors affecting their business, such as metrics on sales, production, and internal operations, in order to to make better business decisions. Be aware that BI is a different from classical databases and much more complex.

This article provides a rapid introduction to some important BI concepts. It then highlights the need for geospatial BI software and deals with the integration of the spatial component in a BI software stack in order to consistently enable geo-analytical tools. We then present different works performed and tools designed by the GeoSOA research group.1 aBadard, Thierry1 aDubé, Etienne  uhttp://timreview.ca/article/289