The business intelligence (BI) lifecycle - a business-focused process for managing the design, technical implementation and deployment of a BI solution that enables companies to deal with the complexities facing their business - can appear deceptively simple.
However, the reality is that the lifecycle is an intricate system bringing together people, process and technology. Coordinating these three entities is fundamental to BI success and to any BI initiative that aims to close the gap between the amount of information available to the business and the number of key decisions that need to be made.
Organisational uptake of BI solutions has never been higher than it is today. At the same time, however, many analysts say that more than half of BI projects experience limited acceptance or outright failure.
Setting goals
A successful business is based on a set of defined goals and predetermined key performance indicators, and instils a performance management culture throughout the organisation, with continuous monitoring and analysis driving corrective actions when necessary. By focusing on key business metrics, companies can gain accurate insight into the critical factors that drive their businesses.
The design and implementation of BI that is implemented according to a business-centric methodology and underpinned by an approach that focuses on process improvement, can enable companies to address their true business issues with better, faster and more reliable information distributed throughout the enterprise. Adopting this approach enables organisations to take full advantage of BI and thereby enable efficient performance management.
The alternative is BI that - much like botched ERP and CRM implementations - fails to deliver value, is not accepted by users, and ends up costing the organisation a fortune in money and wasted resources.
Complete view
Where companies stumble is when they fall for technology without giving thought to people and processes.
Charl Barnard, GM, Knowledge Integration Dynamics.
BI can be defined as a category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analysing and providing access to structured and unstructured data to help enterprise-level users make better business decisions. BI applications include decision support systems, query and reporting, online analytical processing, statistical analysis, forecasting and data mining.
A complete view of customers, processes and business transactions is essential to answering key performance questions at an enterprise level. BI provides people with a 360-degree view of their organisation and its operations, thus empowering them to make informed decisions and improve overall business performance.
BI is not a new concept, but many organisations do not fully understand it. As a result, they are not able to take full advantage of the technology, use it effectively or use it as an integral business process.
To leverage human resources, companies have to begin by knowing the roles and responsibilities of individuals. Once there is an understanding of individual roles, reporting structures, and their involvement in specific business processes, a structured framework can be created that links people to a set of clearly defined objectives and associated key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs must be tailored to each individual`s needs and role within the organisation. By linking people and processes, companies have the foundation on which to base strategy, initiatives and goals and to link these to process and performance improvement initiatives.
No magic involved
Where companies stumble is when they fall for technology without giving thought to people and processes. Ironically, technology is viewed as the magic potion for firms that wish to improve their business results. But without the people-process link, technology remains under-used and ultimately unsuccessful. This can leave companies exposed and vulnerable, because in today`s environment, organisations need information fast to make good business decisions.
The bottom line is that a well-defined BI strategy can yield a technology architecture that enables processes to work efficiently, and delivers information to people so they can make the right decisions at the right time.
This will in turn ensure that the BI lifecycle enables information management aligned with business needs and goals. This results in a BI foundation that enables performance management across the organisation, thus increasing the probability of success for BI initiatives, and accelerating organisational adoption.
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