The demand for centralized, business intelligence competency centers apparently is on the rise. Nearly 10% of the world's 2,000 largest companies have some sort of BI competency center, estimates Gartner analyst Howard Dresner.

McKesson Corp. set up a BI center of excellence six months ago. "The driver behind this is making sure we're maximizing the value of everything we're investing in," says Stephen Zander, director of business-intelligence operations, at McKesson Corp., a large drug and medical-supply company.

Aviva Canada Inc., a property and casualty insurance company, relies on its Information Management Services department to bridge the communications gap between business-intelligence-tool users and the IT department. "Business intelligence isn't a technology issue. BI is a business issue," says Gerry Lee, VP of information management services, pointing out that most of the center's 17 staffers are business analysts.

Launch costs for a BI competency center can be $1 million to $2 million, according to Gartner's Dresner. So what's the attraction? Overall cost reduction as companies move an array of BI tools onto standard platforms. But also the centralization of skills, expertise and resources. "We couldn't get into CRM until we had solid data-management and business-intelligence capabilities," says Lee.