When a data warehouse is first implemented, usage is high all round, said Sean Taylor, ex-management information systems manager at Distell. Later, the typical user's usage settles to a reasonable amount, but the usage by senior management drops to zero.
Taylor and Martin de Beer, information and planning manager, also at Distell, presented on the topic of getting senior management involved in using BI, at the ITWeb Business Intelligence Conference.
De Beer said usage from senior management becomes erratic and then "eventually, they just ask someone to do it for them if they have a query".
It was found that the senior management's issues with data warehousing were mostly pertaining to its lack of user-friendliness. Senior management perceived it as complex, the terminology was confusing and there was an issue with the speed at which query results could be obtained.
The reality is that senior management would ask other staff to obtain the information for them when they had a query, he added. These would then be presented in a static format, not allowing the user to drill down further to get other information. Therefore, valuable insight may be overlooked.
This led to Distell needing a revised strategy, to get the information to senior management. “We went from pull to push.”
Taylor said standard reports were being sent via e-mail and users received SMSes. A few of the advantages of a push, rather than pull, model were that the information was distributed across the whole enterprise, there was a seamless receipt of information and one version of the truth.
The disadvantages of this method, Taylor said, included the reports being too static, and there was little or no drill down capacity. Also, such reports were time-consuming and the large reports impacted the WAN and e-mail infrastructure.
Taylor spoke of the company's “quick-win” BI implementation, which was rolled out in January. Within three weeks of going live, the user base doubled to 30 users and a replacement server needed to be purchased, he concluded.
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