Business Intelligence is the skills, abilities and tools (software and analysis) to help the organization have better information about itself and to help it make better decisions moving forward. The ideas that make up Business Intelligence are not new, but the formalization and combination of them have helped create the massive industry around ‘Business Intelligence’.
SAS, Accenture, IBM, Oracle, SAP, Actuate, Bearing Point, Cognos, Protiviti, Business Objects and hundreds of other consultants and vendors have all jumped on board, ‘all-in’, behind the idea (and opportunity for money) of Business Intelligence. Each provide their own information and spin on what it actually is… but at its core they would all likely agree that you must take internal data and information, analyze it to find trends, opportunities, and threats, and then use the information to make critical decisions throughout the organization. Anything added onto that is simply increasing the scope of business intelligence (which is ok).
The tools to do this have certainly evolved, and some are downright incredible. Business Objects, a tool that many readers are probably familiar with, has been improving their product for years, and power users can probably make that tool do incredible things. But, you don’t have to be a power user to build some great reports and find information and trends that the naked eye could never detect.
It is important that a Business Intelligence program focus on doing work that will help the other areas of the business. It is important to partner with marketing, sales, and operations, to ensure that the work performed is valuable and helpful. Getting a quick-win with any of these groups helps in getting buy-in from them as well as other leaders and executives within the organization.
It is also recommended that the Business Intelligence group not be considered heavily ‘a part’ of the IT division. Doing this can make it seem like BI is just another IT function, when in reality it should be a partnership between the business and IT to see what can be learned from the past, and what can be done to be smarter in the future.
When reviewing and analyzing different tools, it’s a great idea to include representatives from the various business areas to see the demonstrations of what can be done. This will help give them great ideas for what you, using the tool, can do for them to make them better and smarter. It will also help build a relationship and buy-in for the BI program.
For more information on the ‘theory of knowledge’, visit Sanskrit-iz-ed Meaning of the Word “epistemology” courtesy of the Common World Inheritage