That was the view of users and experts sitting on a panel at the Competing on Analytics Symposium here last week.

If done right, enterprise-level analysis of data using BI tools can help organizations make key decisions about issues such as where to build manufacturing plants, how to bolster customer loyalty or how to increase market share, the panelists said.

Keith Coulter, managing director of consumer cards and loans at London-based Barclays PLC, said data analysis has been a core piece of a five-year effort launched by his company in 2000 to halt a sales decline and gain new customers against emerging competitors Capital One Financial Corp. and MBNA Corp., which is now owned by Bank of America Corp.

Coulter said analytics played a key role in Barclays' acquisition of 1.5 million new accounts during 2003. The total is three times more than the number of accounts added during 2001 and 2002 combined, he noted.

Coulter said analytics have since become central to the business. "This is now embedded in our business, embedded in how we work and how we compete," he said.