Mutterings and mumblings around the industry for some time now have focused on this technology or that technology that's not living up to its promises. Given the way some vendors and resellers hype said technology, this is not particularly surprising.
On the other hand, the way some users implement technology, and expect it to be a magical cure-all, also makes it unsurprising that they're less than thrilled with the results. Somewhere in the middle is a sane, and doable, method of rolling out technology.
Somewhere.
In the BI space many of its pundits admit it hasn't delivered, and the reasons are evenly split between end-user idiocy and vendor hype.
Says IS Partners director Caron Mooney: “Companies typically view BI as a once-off project, expecting it to bring about change throughout the organisation once implemented. Initially, a BI implementation might focus on one area of the business, such as finance, sales or marketing, for example, and a budget is set aside for this single BI project. Once the budget has been spent, little scope is left for ensuring the implementation actually meets the organisation's expectations, however.”
Says Mooney: “BI is a programme, not a project. Our vision for BI in terms of the BI competency centre (BICC) is split into three parts. The first part is a team solely responsible for helping users and management pull data from existing BI data sources.
“The second group is responsible for and reports to C-level executives, often the CFO and marketing people, and is there to do deep analysis, data mining, and help to identify trends and issues, as well as for the same reasons as group one.
“The third group is the project group and should expand and contract as business requires. All three of those are headed up by a strategist of some kind.”
The rationale behind this?
People think it's about the technology and getting that in place.
Sean Paine, director, Enterprise Worx
“It goes like this,” she says. “If you take a typical day, an analyst gets a request, goes to the developer, asks if they can modify this because the branch manager wants something different. As they start doing that, a call comes in from the executive floor, the CEO wants numbers for a board meeting that afternoon. So the branch manager is dead, he's never going to get what he wants because everyone drops tools and focuses on the C-level requirement.
“This same group is also responsible for new projects. These don't happen because they are all in crisis mode all the time. We've seen it many times in big enterprises. For me, this is the way to tackle it. Service different groups from different units so everyone gets some kind of priority. The organisations we deal with gain huge benefits when they use BI properly and miss opportunities all round when they don't.”
The tech factor
Says Sean Paine, director at Enterprise Worx: “One of the major reasons why BI uptake has been so slow and seen not to deliver on its promises lies with the adoption of BI systems in organisations. People think it's about the technology and getting that in place. In my experience, that's not the key factor. One needs to find the business value that's driving BI first, and end-users should ask service providers and vendors to quantify that value in rands and cents and use that to drive and measure projects.”
“There is no 'quick fix',” confirms Silverkeys Consulting Services director Brendan Martin. “Despite what many IT industry professionals say, BI is not about the technology. It's about the commitment of the client and the quality of the consulting process that's initially embarked upon.
“Companies should begin BI implementations with simple reports and dashboards, expanding on the offering as users' needs and understanding grow. The consulting firm should take the customer on a 'learning journey', beginning simply, addressing pain points and providing solutions over time,” he adds.
Complicating the issue is the fact that more large organisations have legacy IT environments to deal with. Very few implementations at that level are greenfields, and this brings a certain set of challenges.
Says PBT COO Martin Rennhackkamp: “A lot of the organisations we work in are still battling to get the basics right. In the insurance and banking world, people are working with legacy warehouses developed through evolution. There is so much dead weight in the set-ups they have they can't seem to get over it. We keep advising them to get rid of the rubbish and focus on what the business needs. They have elaborate architectures, excessive toolsets, redundant data, and [the legacy] is slowing them down, they're plodding in the mud.”
The implementation question
What is implemented is often not as important as how. We've already discussed the criticality of why, but what's often forgotten in the process is the who, as in, 'who will be using it?'
Says SAS Institute solutions architect Bruce Bond-Myatt: “Software issues impact user experience and the user's ability to consume and use BI. [Success] also has to do with the information maturity of customer. Are they a fact-based, decision-making organisation? We see customers from one part of an organisation invest in data warehousing, information delivery tools and BI, but in another part of the organisation, they don't use it. They see the reports, get the data but do not make decision based on that. You need to have the maturity to make use of the information BI delivers as well.”
There is no 'quick fix'.
Brendan Martin, director, Silverkeys Consulting
Says KID director Mervyn Mooi: “Often you build a quality data warehouse or BI system that has standard quality data but it's not used. That can also cause the user community to say BI is not delivering as promised.
“An information culture needs to be evolved, and this can only come through proper advocating and marketing a BI system in terms of the benefits to users. Often only the IT manager and business sponsor know the benefits; users don't understand or appreciate the full value of a BI system,” he says.
“There is light at the end of the tunnel, however,” says Paine, “and that is in end-users becoming more familiar and comfortable with technology thanks to Web 2.0 applications like Twitter, FaceBook and the rest. As users become comfortable with technology in their social lives, they become more comfortable with it, and BI in particular, in the workplace.”
I see it
The perception problem Mooi points to is pervasive in the IT environment and is born out of business' lack of understanding of what IT is, and what the department is actually meant to do. That IT needs to give itself an image makeover is old news. That IT may be relegated to the 'boring' bin along with other utilities is a problem, however, given the difference it can make when it's properly used.
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