Numbers crunching isn't what it used to be. What might once have been the task of a minimalist keypunch is now an elaborate operation presided over by dedicated business intelligence (BI) systems. No one knows this better than the enterprise. Companies of all sizes must translate their mountains of raw data into meaningful insights and actionable information. The ability to do so has evolved from a competitive differentiator into a mission-critical function. In this article Rita Sallam, research director at Gartner, Stephen O'Grady, senior analyst at RedMonk, and Boris Evelson, principal analyst at Forrester Research describe best practices from the business world that if followed, K-12 districts can use to guide their BI initiatives toward effective implementation.