Jim Young, director of the information services group at Allstate Insurance Co. in Northbrook, Ill., said his company has 33,000 users of Business Objects SA tools who rely on the BI software to detect and analyze fraud, determine prices, process claims and manage Allstate's adjuster workforce. For example, during hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, Allstate used BI to understand where claims were coming from so it could quickly get adjusters to customers, he said.

Now, it aims to identify all of the potential contact points with customers and put BI data into the business processes of the employees who work with them, he added.

"We've got the data, [and] we need to mine that data and get it into the hands of people who can make some good decisions about how to cross-sell our products," Young said. "Historically, we have done a great job of implementing BI somewhat tactically. Now, the opportunity is to start to bring together data from all the disparate parts of the company."

Douglas Chambers, administrator of the Office of IT Applications in the Georgia Department of Transportation, said his agency has 200 people now using Business Objects dashboards to monitor projects in progress. During the first part of 2007, he added, the department will roll out the dashboards to an additional 2,500 users.

"The dashboards allow upper management to drill down and see if a project is in trouble," Chambers said. "They can see exactly what is holding that project up."