Information not just for bosses anymore; Once domain of statisticians & analysts; not anymore
Vipul Mehta
Earlier, only the elite had access to Business Intelligence (BI). High cost and manageability issues restricted enterprise-wide BI roll-outs. BI implementations were restrained to the IT team and to business analysts or so called “power users”. However, there is now a much greater focus on getting wider adoption of BI among mainstream line-of-business users.
BI helps users answer business questions and measure and monitor business performance at every level of the organisation against clearly stated goals and objectives. BI clearly is the #1 priority for CIOs. Operational BI enables organisations to roll out BI to a greater cross-section of employees. Extending BI to employees at the operational level is becoming vital.
According to market research company Intelligence Business Strategies, operations managers and business analysts account for 80% of tools usage, while only 10% of users at the “coalface” of the company have access to any form of analytics. The results of this inequality are clear: top management sets strategic goals for the business, but employees on the lower tiers are unable to work towards them effectively because they are not able to view - and more importantly, act upon - the same information.
Hence, it is recommended that companies establish a BI competency centre - a cross-functional team of employees from both IT and the business, responsible for supporting and promoting the use of BI tools by employees. And those that do not may have a risk of losing control of their BI strategy and jeopardising the organisation’s strategic objectives.
Undoubtedly Business Intelligence is evolving. Open BI to masses for enterprise-wide empowerment. Accommodate 000’s of users with affordability without prohibitive licensing, implementation & training costs. Apply 1KEY BI as a utility in conjunction with your corporate goals.
Posted on February 7th, 2008 by Vipul Mehta
Filed under: Business Intelligence, CIO Community, View Points & Perspective
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