A comparative analysis of open source systems for business intelligence solutions in SMES

Nowadays, companies are increasingly employing information technologies (IT) in the decision making process, in order to effectively achieve their business targets. In particular, the concept of Business Intelligence (BI) became essential, which concerns the set of tools and procedures that allow a company to turn their business data into useful information for decision making. Until a few years ago, the creation of a Business Intelligence environment was implemented by adopting commercial products, still characterized by high costs and not always appropriate to the specific needs of SMEs. To meet an increasing demand of these systems, specialized Open Source platforms specialized in performing all the functions of a business intelligence environment have been created. The purpose of this study is to evaluate in a comparative way the main Open Source (OS) products available on the market for business intelligence, in order to deeply understand the potential of a business intelligence system managed through an Open Source model within the company.