Even though the company uses BI to help manage its supply chain, ward off fraudulent returns and monitor corporate performance, senior vice president and CIO Steven Stone said he still gets asked by other executives whether there is a dollar value associated with the better -- and faster -- decisions BI makes possible. "In the end, you're likely to be faced with some form of 'proof' question," he said yesterday during a keynote presentation in Las Vegas at the MicroStrategy World 2007 user conference.

And, he stressed, "definitive proof is hard to come by."

For example, the company several years ago used its Teradata data warehouse and MicroStrategy BI tools to help it solve problems with collecting delivery charges from its stores. By using BI to analyze which stores were collecting the charges and which weren't, collections increased $30 million the following year, he said. "This is an example of what BI is adding to the bottom line."

Still, the Lowe's CEO at the time asked Stone how he could definitively link the bump in collection fees to the use of BI. "There is no silver bullet, (but) if you continue to deliver value, the funding always seems to inch its way back to your budget."

Lowe's has several new projects that Stone said show the value of BI to the company, which runs 170,000 reports per week. Those reports are accessed by internal users and almost 1,000 Lowe's suppliers.