Deadline for BI award nominations extended

The entry deadline for the annual ITWeb BI Excellence and Innovation Awards has been extended to 31 January 2012.

Companies and individuals are encouraged to submit their nominations for business intelligence (BI) projects that have delivered exceptional business value, made a significant strategic difference, or incorporated out-of-the-box thinking.

The prestigious awards recognise the best and most innovative BI projects in the country. They will be handed over at the annual ITWeb BI Summit, on 28 February 2012.

Engen was the winning entrant in 2010 BI Excellence Awards. Its project portfolio management BI strategy was deployed across its distribution network in sub-Saharan Africa. The project improved Engen's business planning process around prioritising projects.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS), the runner-up in 2010, was crowned overall winner during the ITWeb Business Intelligence Summit and Awards 2011. Its enterprise data warehouse and BI capabilities improved cost savings and return on investment, while helping to speed up taxpayer services, as well as enforcement, risk and strategic services.

Dr Barry Devlin, founder and principal of 9sight Consulting, is one of the judges of this year's awards. He says there are two aspects to a BI project that he looks out for - a good story and the technical quality of the project's approach.

“BI projects in large organisations are often complex, simply because large organisations are complex and typically have many disparate data stores that have to be integrated into a data warehouse.

“In that case, technical quality is seen in the elegance of the solution that simply works in the face of the complexity. In smaller organisations or limited-scope projects, I look for innovation, either in the technology used or the process of implementation, and sometimes both.”

For more information on the ITWeb BI Excellence and Innovation Awards, click here.