People challenges can negate the value of BI

As technological developments move us inexorably forward, business intelligence (BI) vendors have made great strides in lightening the burden of technical challenges facing BI deployments, offering quicker, easier to use and more cost-effective solutions for the delivery of real-time or pre-aggregated information from different sources in record time.

Despite this, a recent survey conducted by Accenture and published in the DM Direct Special Report indicates that many of the challenges facing BI implementations today are people- rather than technology-related. According to the 150 senior executives interviewed about what they see as the greatest impediments to growth in their organisation, uncertainty and change topped the list.

54% of the respondents selected either "uncertainty in the financial markets and in the economy overall" or "political and regulatory uncertainty in key countries and markets" as major obstacles to growth, while 17% indicated that changes in their customer base have an impact. 16% believed that changes in the skills and capabilities of the talent pool have an impact and 13% felt that constant technological innovation and the introduction of disruptive technologies add to the challenge.

Although this study was conducted in the US, the challenges facing South African companies are no different. What you know rarely causes problems; rather, what you don`t know is the issue.

Introjection as a philosophical theory is not new, but it is certainly attracting attention as one of the obstacles to change. It suggests that people glean ideas from someone they respect or through formal training and then look for relevant data to support these. Once corroborating data is found, these ideas are adopted as their own, and so they become "true".

This is how a traditional reporting culture is born and perpetuated. The issues that lead to the generation of reports are often not the most important, yet the reports stubbornly follow traditional ideals.

Conventional reporting cultures in organisations feed the tide of uncertainty that hampers growth. It is highly unlikely that information published in a report was not expected by senior management - if the numbers were not expected, it is probably because there were simply too many reports to view, too much data to correlate, and too little time to do it in.

A great example of this type of thinking is the qwerty keyboard. In 1837 a calligraphist, Christopher Scoles, invented the typewriter. But he found that if people using it typed too fast the keys stuck. So he moved the keys around into a layout specifically designed to make people type slower! Remington, the sewing machine manufacturer, started manufacturing the machines and the rest is history. Here we are over 150 years later with most of the western world interacting with state-of-the-art computers with a keyboard specifically designed to slow you down.

For every crisis that arises, at least one person in the company would have seen it coming or could have spotted it if they had access to the data. However, traditional reporting cycles are adhered to because managers cannot be called to task for not knowing what did not appear in their reports.

It is clear that today`s business environment is no longer the place for traditional reporting cultures. We now have access to information as never before, and markets are increasingly influenced by unforeseen factors, and so a culture of BI is coming to the fore. BI asks "why" before setting in motion open-minded investigations that are not pre-determined by reporting environments.

Reporting is trained thought; BI is train of thought. Understanding the difference between the two will be a determining factor in the success of organisations striving for growth.

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91% of the respondents in the Accenture survey indicated that stronger analytical and BI capabilities would make them better prepared to address their biggest challenges. 84% believed that an organisational culture that better accommodates change would have a positive impact when facing challenges, while 74% believed that a more robust IT infrastructure would do the trick.

South African organisations face unique challenges, with massive shifts in management structure being forged in line with government`s black economic empowerment (BEE) initiatives. BEE managers are often provided with strong mentoring and training programmes. However, these mostly follow traditional reporting cultures. Management teams are only moved into a BI culture when it is perceived that they are "ready" to operate in that environment.

In essence this is teaching bad management practices first, then telling management to forget all about them and learn the right way. Not the most effective way of doing things.

Reporting is a big business driver, but the level to which it is deployed in an organisation, and how this is done, must be closely examined. A massive cultural shift is urgently needed to move companies away from old management reporting cultures.

Management must look for information and stop reading reports. Executives must have the ability to act on data timeously. After all, information without action is as bad as not having it in the first place. Decision-making processes must be streamlined to ensure that valuable information is shared and acted upon.