The University of Dundee is to launch a new postgraduate course in "business intelligence" - to combat the dearth of expertise within companies.

Business intelligence (BI) refers to skills, processes, technologies, applications and practices used to support decision making within companies.  It consistently ranks in executives' top three priorities and its implementation tops the list of corporate IT objectives. 

BI was one of the top ten most popular careers of 2009 in the US, and there is a growing recognition of its necessity across the globe.

But despite this, qualified BI talent is in short supply in the UK - something the new programme at Dundee aims to rectify.

Students will work with Dr Mark Whitehorn, an internationally recognised expert within the field.  A prolific writer, Dr Whitehorn has authored eleven books on database technology and BI, and holds academic positions with the universities of Dundee and Cambridge.

He said: "Enterprises have no trouble collecting a mass of data: the big problem is extracting the valuable information therein.

"Business intelligence describes a set of technologies that are used to extract information from data."

The first cohort will start the course in January 2010, with a limited number of places still available.