Which statement correctly differentiates data warehousing from business intelligence?

• A. Data warehousing focuses on storing and organizing data; business intelligence focuses on analyzing data to inform decisions
• B. Data warehousing analyzes data for decisions; business intelligence stores data
• C. Data warehousing is only for long-term archival; business intelligence is real-time
• D. Data warehousing replaces ERP systems; business intelligence replaces CRM systems

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is separating what stores and organizes data from what uses data to drive decisions. A data warehouse is a centralized repository that stores and organizes data from multiple sources, designed to be cleaned, integrated, and optimized for retrieval and reporting. Business intelligence, on the other hand, encompasses the analytics, dashboards, reports, and tools that analyze that data to generate insights and support decision-making.

So this statement is the best fit because it clearly assigns storage and organization to data warehousing and analytical, decision-focused work to business intelligence. The other options mix up roles—saying data warehousing analyzes data or BI stores data is inaccurate. The idea that data warehousing is only for long-term archival and BI is real-time is an oversimplification, and the notion that these systems replace ERP or CRM ignores how they actually complement operational systems by consolidating and analyzing their data.