Business intelligence applications can be:

• Mission-critical and integral to an enterprise's operations or occasional to meet a special requirement
• Enterprise-wide or local to one division, department, or project
• Centrally initiated or driven by user demand

This term was used as early as September, 1996, when a Gartner Group report said:

By 2000, Information Democracy will emerge in forward-thinking enterprises, with Business Intelligence information and applications available broadly to employees, consultants, customers, suppliers, and the public. The key to thriving in a competitive marketplace is staying ahead of the competition. Making sound business decisions based on accurate and current information takes more than intuition. Data analysis, reporting, and query tools can help business users wade through a sea of data to synthesize valuable information from it - today these tools collectively fall into a category called "Business Intelligence."

Read more about it:
>>	SearchSAP.com offers a transcript of an interview with Naeem Hashmi about "SAP Business Intelligence: what is it? How does it relate to Internet and 3rd party tool integration?" (Registration required.)
>>	SearchCRM.com has information about the use of business intelligence in customer relationship management.
>>	2020 provides business analytics software demos.