I, Cringely | The Pulpit: Invisible Giant: How the SAS Institute makes tons of money solving business problems most companies don't even know they have "Here is a simple fact of corporate life. Organizations tend to value systems over data, but users value data. In this case the users are right. Without good data, systems are meaningless... But with good data and good analytic tools, and with a top-to-bottom mandate to use that information -- literally, the right to know -- it is possible to change the world. That's what they did at Wal-Mart, a company that uses information technology and corporate data as a strategic asset. Wal-Mart's success is based entirely on knowing their data and deriving actionable information from that data. It is the same at Home Depot. These companies are world-beaters entirely because of the quality of their data and their willingness to make decisions based on that data."