Predictive analytics, agile development, user-centric business intelligence and improvements in visualization are giving new life to this mature technology.
How does your organization extract
true value from its business information? Answering this question has been a
persistent challenge facing technology and line-of-business executives for
decades.
While business intelligence
(BI) has evolved since the days of “green bar” reports, the industry still has
a long way to go to offer companies business information that can be translated
into actionable steps that drive business results, says Joe Bugajski, senior
analyst in business intelligence for the Midvale, Utah-based Burton Group.
“There is a sea change
coming in business intelligence,” he says. “The existing tool sets have been
out there since the early ’90s—some of them before that. And we still have
tools that are too complicated for most folks. We’re pushing too much of the
technical mumbo jumbo behind BI into the faces of users, and we’re still not
giving access to valuable information in a simple fashion to the majority of
the business population.”
As a result, users are
increasingly asking their BI units, “What have you done for me lately?”
The best BI teams answer that
question with a bevy of new capabilities based on five trends that experts say
are changing the face of business intelligence.
BI Overload Posted on: 12-31-09 | By: Barry DennisThe Information Overload problem presents in the BI arena as well.
Any CEO knows that there is certain "must have" information regarding Marketing, Operations, Production, Personnel, he must have to run the business, be alerted when potential problems arise and to aid in his "creative thinking" time.
Downstream, marketing and all the other operational groups, not only need to source the information the CEO wants, but develop information tracks that facilitate their planning and research.
The problem is How Much of Which? Which Information Stream has the highest priority...When?
Society and Business, Government and Institutions have become so complicated that the processes used to run them generate so much information-on-demand that managers easily may become overwhelmed if they try to keep up with everything, uniformed and unhelpful if they track nothing. (Dilbert's got a handle on this!)
Oh me, oh my! What to do (imagine head wringing at this point)?
Think of an Information Flow Chart.
What do you need to know and When do you need to know it?
Item by Item Sales Forecast for the next season? Next Spring. Next year?
How many Entry level employees needed in Operations, Sales, Finance? When? What Qualifications? Each manager, Each CEO has their own requirements to do their jobs. In some companies, BI has issued Reports for years without knowing their value, how they were used and who used them, even though the circumstances, the BI need that called for the original Information Flow has become outdated, even useless in some cases.
Let's not let BI grow so unwieldy that it's mostly ignored. Prioritizing Information needs and timing is crucial to success
Knowing What BI is needed and When is the cure.
The job for BI is discriminating, and pruning ruthlessly so that when the information arrives it is Timely, Necessary, and in Analytics and Predictive Behaviors, accurate.
Let's not forget the most important information of all...information on Human Capital; it's availability, sources, development and utilization. That BI leads to the best use of all the rest.
Great article!Posted on: 09-27-09 | By: Brenda SomichI think our members would really identify with your content. We have a BI wiki we're working on that could use your insight on the subject - http://mike2.openmethodology.org/wiki/Business_Intelligence
It's not the tools, its the expertisePosted on: 08-21-09 | By: glbeachNo question tools continue to evolve, and no question in some cases BI has become too cumbersome, due in no small part to the proliferation of systems in the back office capturing information in so many non-related structures.
The real issue - as given in the last paragraph of the article - is the need for integration of thought leadership by subject matter experts. And that type of information becomes very proprietary. Many, many companies have algorithms to parse information out - once it has been cobbled together from transaction systems. Not very many companies have the expertise to understand and act on what is contained in that information. And fewer still have the capacity to truly use this type of guidance in a predictive sense.
A user comment on this articlePosted on: 08-20-09 | By: AnonymousThis is a really detailed and useful report on BI. Any idea of best practices in terms of BI visualization?
