BI as a strategic corporate asset

After being away for a short while, I returned to find that I'd missed this CW article about business intelligence as a corporate asset.  It's an interesting article about how several companies are using Business Objects tools to access data and information to move projects forward or improve business in some way.  But upon finishing the article, I'm still intrigued with the idea of business intelligence as a corporate asset.

Maybe it's because I've always felt that BI is a corporate asset and not just another technology for the IT department to have to deal with.  I guess the IT department does need to be involved, but doesn't (or at least, shouldn't) the entire organization benefit from business intelligence?  By my way of thinking, BI doesn't belong to one department or another.  For example, business intelligence isn't just a marketing tool.  The data gathered and used by the marketing department is also useful to the customer service department, to project management, and even to purchasing, among other branches of any one company. 

The way I see it, business intelligence should be put in place to solve a cross-organizational problem.  For example, are sales falling?  If they are, use your business intelligence solution to determine what's causing the fall, how customers might be better served, how the organizaton can touch more customers and touch customers more often, how your organization can improve upon the processes that make sales possible...and a whole host of other issues.  These are issues that might be scattered around the various departments in your organization, making it impossible to solve the problem from a single angle.

Am I seeing it wrong?  Do you implement business intelligence for one department?  Or do you implement it to solve a cross-organizational business problem?  Respond in the comments section with your experiences.  I'd love to hear your thoughts...