<P> The earliest known use of the term business intelligence is in Richard Millar Devens' Cyclopædia of Commercial and Business Anecdotes (1865). Devens used the term to describe how the banker Sir Henry Furnese gained profit by receiving and acting upon information about his environment, prior to his competitors: </P> <P> Throughout Holland, Flanders, France, and Germany, he maintained a complete and perfect train of business intelligence . The news of the many battles fought was thus received first by him, and the fall of Namur added to his profits, owing to his early receipt of the news . </P> <P> The ability to collect and react accordingly based on the information retrieved, Devens says, is central to business intelligence . </P> <P> When Hans Peter Luhn, a researcher at IBM, used the term business intelligence in an article published in 1958, he employed the Webster's Dictionary definition of intelligence: "the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal ." Business intelligence as it is understood today is said to have evolved from the decision support systems (DSS) that began in the 1960s and developed throughout the mid-1980s . DSS originated in the computer - aided models created to assist with decision making and planning . </P>

Which approach has made bi users independent of an it organization