If you think of today’s businesses as being like complex organisms, then it becomes easier to understand the critical role of advanced analytics in monitoring organizational health and supporting growth. Just as your body’s nervous system, immune responses and circulatory network provide continuous sensory feedback to identify problems and maintain healthy functioning, your company’s analytics processes are critical for organizational adaptation and survival.

For the past forty years, companies have been building all their financial and business decisions around information contained in traditional data structures. Virtually all financial systems, no matter who has designed them, have been built around relational databases.  This brings the same set of issues and challenges to every single system.