Technology trends like cloud, social, mobile, big data and more, are driving the way companies operate and do business today, says Gerald Naidoo, CEO of Logikal Consulting. Each one of these trends brings its own challenges and benefits, and together, they can be a terrifying mix of risk, disruption and a minefield of disparate technologies.
Naidoo says building an intelligent business requires a fundamental shift in thinking - from data warehousing and BI, to big data and analytics - it's about putting intelligence, and actionable data at the heart of the business, and integrating it into each and every business process.
"This intelligence is gleaned from monitoring of operational business activity, analytics, and data found across all parts of the enterprise. The idea is ubiquitous BI in every activity in every business process across the enterprise so as to guide business operations towards achieving strategic business objectives. While BI is not directly equal to intelligent business, it is a fundamental step to informed decision making."
In most cases the operational business user is unaware that he or she is using BI. "In the background, however, BI is driving intelligent business, giving its users detailed, current data on all aspects of the business, including financials, production, CRM," Naidoo says. "Users then have access to reports that synthesise this information, and give insight into current return on investment, or trends and product lines. These reports in turn help the user to make better, informed, fact-based business decisions."
An intelligent business will use BI in the context of an operational business task being performed in a business process. "In this way, business processes must be attached to business objectives and goals to help an organisation align business processes with the business objectives. Once this alignment has happened, BI can be targeted at a specific business process in an operational context to achieve a specific business objective," he explains.
Naidoo adds that another factor that is driving the intelligent business is the explosion of contextual information, also referred to as big data. "Having context gives a business good intelligence - such as knowing what has and is happening, and being able to use that information at the perfect moment."
Contextual information is an amalgamation of data we get from the integration of mobile, social, cloud and analytics, combined with our business processes. "To stay ahead of the pack, businesses need to narrow the gap between this information and the operational decisions informed by that information," Naidoo says, explaining that this is what building an intelligent business is all about - staying relevant to the market, and adapting to the changing customer dynamics as they occur, and in the right time.
"There is little doubt that moving to an intelligent business will be a huge differentiator for organisations of all sizes, and those who do not adopt intelligent business processes will be left behind."
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