Lowe's uses BI to track 50 million items against billions of transaction records to plan inventory at its 1,400 stores. BI is key to analyzing the 4,000 to 6,000 quantity discount programs the company has in place with suppliers to determine which are most effective. In addition, the company's returns department uses its BI tools to analyze product returns in real time to try to identify potential fraud.

"They can properly handle our real customers and reduce theft," he said. "When you know your customers, you begin to understand the value of a single decision."

He noted that Lowe's has been able to improve margins in its lawn and garden business and identify the best places to put its cash registers through the use of BI.

Stone, in an interview, said that as BI has become more linked to operations decisions, the company has figured out infrastructure changes it needed to make. For example, the company this month completed a move from Microsoft Windows to IBM's AIX for its BI operation. The new system is now running on 3,000 servers so Lowe's can handle spikes in demand more quickly.

In addition, the Mooresville, N.C.-based company is slated to complete a second data center in San Antonio by the end of the year. Lowe's plans to run its Teradata data warehouse in the new center as well as in its existing data center in North Carolina using Teradata's Dual Active System Solution, an architecture that allows data and applications to run in different geographical locations.