These are the rainy days we hoped would never come. We are living in a time of tightened purse strings and uncertain prospects. The shadow of the bank manager looms over many previously flourishing businesses. Difficult decisions are being made everywhere. Business owners are searching for financial stability, managers for the consistent performance results which will signal job security. But whilst the current situation may be grim, there is gold at the end of the rainbow for those companies which do survive this recession. Rewarded with a bigger market share, and armed with the kind of confidence that outrunning the predator brings, these businesses will step out into a brighter future and reap the rewards. Business Intelligence can help you to ensure that your business is one of those survivors. Undeniably the most pressing issues facing any business are those of eliminating unnecessary cost in all areas, attracting and servicing custom and avoiding the cashflow pitfalls of debtors and poor decision making. The good news is that for every one of these crucial areas, there are ways to excavate the secrets to maximise profit and uncover the potential in the data you already hold from your day to day trading activities. BI can aid a companys survival during the lean times as well as its expansion in times of abundance. While they are an undeniable fact of a tough economic climate, redundancies are never a nice event, but selecting the wrong person for redundancy can be a disaster both in monetary terms and for staff morale.