Wednesday 12 March 2014

6 Pointers while Implementing Business Intelligence solutions

All you need to know to while implementing Business Intelligence & Self-Service Reporting solution successfully


Business intelligence (BI) analyst expert Gartner says that “BI can have a direct positive impact on a company’s business performance, dramatically improving its ability to accomplish its mission by making smarter decisions at every level of the business from corporate strategy to operational processes.”

 Business Intelligence

So we all agree that Business Intelligence has become essential tool regardless of the industry and size of the organization. Without a clear pointer, organizations can fall into the BI patchwork leading to:
  • Redundant costs in deployment, maintenance, and training
  • Increased information inconsistencies
  • Frustrated employees who cannot get timely answers to their business questions
Having a clear strategy and rationalizing the BI standards can result in significant savings and greater control over information. These are the 6 pointers we suggest while implementing Business Intelligence for your organization.

1.        Business users own the driver’s seat

It’s time to get your IT department align to your business end users. Create awareness to develop broader understanding and perspective of your business. This can help in better support and relationship between your IT support and business counterparts. Also encourage the IT department to use BI to manage the business of IT.

2.        Proliferation of BI tools

Budget has shifted from the IT to end user departments lately. And Many BI vendors suggest users to just buy the BI tool and forget the IT department. This can cause proliferation of overlapping BI tools, especially in large organizations. Users are often blissfully unaware of the different BI tools that their organization use and the benefit of having corporate standards.  It’s ok to have multiple BI tools but Address standardization and governance.


 3.      BI and strategically related Technologies

The two main BI efforts for users are BI Integration with operations and Data mining. These two technologies should be considered while developing BI strategies for your organization. Find important niche areas that may provide greater value for your business goals.

4.      Reduce time spent on data entry and manipulation

A strong BI system, if well-configured, can help eliminate the time spent copying and pasting data and performing manual calculations. It’s vital to generate reports where most of the leg work is done behind the scenes.

5.      Empower employees

It is believed that more people who have access to data, the greater value organizations will derive as a result. BI can help organization by turning employees into decision makers. Armed with right, relevant and real time information, employees can take informed decisions that will have significant positive impact in the organization.

The smaller things that count:

As long as you have data to analyze, BI would provide you the information you need for decision making. Implementing the above pointers will ensure efficient use of BI and self-service reporting.  Evaluate business values and understand the costs and efforts involved in implementation of the BI. Select right technologies and tools that are related to the use of BI. Address data quality, integrity and most importantly data security. 

BI strategy & standardization is hard work but definitely worth it, so what are the standards / strategy that worked for you ? Please share your views in the comment section.

Srivatsan Aravamudan


Srivatsan Aravamudan
Design and Communication

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