For a long time, there had been an “aura” around business intelligence (BI) applications suggesting that the role of BI focused either on facilitating delivering predefined management reports to senior managers or on serving “professional analysts” whose job was largely to slice and dice data in order to inform those same senior managers regarding strategic business decisions. Interestingly, in 2004, the research/analysis firm Forrester provided a characterization of users of business intelligence[1], classifying users into five groups (with my own “commentary” added):

1.       IT Users, who largely use BI tools for development purposes, using the product suites for data modeling, data integration, report generation, presentation and delivery. The IT users more likely to be using BI to support individuals within the organization as well as managing the creation and delivery of reports to outside information consumers.

2.       Power Users are those sophisticated “professional analysts” who are have experience using complex tools, and are the individuals who often use BI tools to manipulate data within analysis environments, but are less likely to be reviewing pre-defined reports. These analysts support the business users and inform decision-making but may not necessarily be making the decisions.

3.       Business Users are the managers who review the analyses presented by the power users, and may even do their own ad hoc queries, take the results of those queries and may import those into desktop productivity tools in order to create their own reports and presentations; business users are savvy about the data, and may cross the line into becoming power users in their own right.

4.       Casual Users may review pre-designed reports, or eyeball different presentation schemes (such as scorecards or performance dashboards), with metrics rolled up across functional or operational areas. These decision-makers may take actions based on actionable knowledge presented to them, and may want to customize the presentation and delivery of BI based on adjustments to defined parameters.

5.       Extra-Enterprise Users, including those external parties, customers, regulators, external business analysts, partners, suppliers, or anyone with a need for reported information for tactical decision-making.

Looking at the Forrester user categories almost five years later allows us to comment using our 20/20 hindsight. Two trends in the years that have passed since 2004, when considered at the same time, might lead to the conclusion that the “BI aura” is dissolving.

The first is the significant consolidation in the BI tools market. By 2004, vendor Hyperion had acquired Brio Software, but since then has been acquired itself by Oracle. BI giant Business Objects collected up a bunch of data integration and data quality vendors, and since has been swallowed by SAP. Cognos is now part of IBM, which has also added many data integration and data quality components to its tool suite. The second, which may be a byproduct of the first, involves the more seamless integration of BI capabilities across the implementation spectrum. Embedding BI functionality into everyday applications enables a more comprehensive use of the technology without forcing all the information consumers to become power users. These factors essentially make business intelligence more pervasive and expand the user base, leading the way for more creative employment of measurement and reporting in a rapidly evolving real-time manner.

In reality, with an increase in pervasiveness of data comes the expectation that these types of tools can enable optimization of all types of decision-making up, down, and across the management hierarchy. This suggests that BI will be able to provide input into performance measurement, productivity improvement, and the corresponding decision-making processes of any types of decision makers in different roles and levels across an organization, ranging from:

·         Strategic decision-makers at the organizational level (such as defining and achieving organizational objectives, tactical decisions impacting operational activities such as those driving sales, compensation planning, financial consolidations, customer analytics and marketing directives, retail site location, and spend analytics);

·         Operational decision-makers at the business application level (supporting operational applications such as supplier management, inventory, manufacturing, sales, fulfillment, logistics, finance);

·         Tactical decisions at the team level (focusing on decisions related to process efficiency, collaboration during the execution of business activities processes, centralized data sharing, efficient workflows, and rapid and secure information analysis);

Monitoring performance against defined objectives can enable impact decision making processes informing our daily jobs across the organization, suggesting how the latest financial reports impact potential mergers and acquisitions, telling the sales people which of the new customer leads within their territories are the most likely to purchase particular items, improving customer service with real-time adjustments to call-center scripts, or reallocation of manufacturing resources based on real-time product demand – the list can go on and on, and in the upcoming months we’ll explore different ways BI is meeting these needs.

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[1] Gile, Keith, “Tech Choices: Grading BI Reporting and Analysis Solutions,” Forrester, August 2004

Check back next week for a video on Data Requirements for Reporting.

As an ongoing part of this blog, I wanted to bring in some third parties with deep technical and industry experience as contributors to a Thought Leader Series.  The first expert I wanted to introduce is David Loshin. 

David Loshin, president of Knowledge Integrity, Inc, (www.knowledge-integrity.com), is a recognized thought leader and expert consultant in the areas of data governance, data quality methods, tools, and techniques, master data management, and business intelligence. David is a prolific author regarding BI best practices, via the expert channel at www.b-eye-network.com and numerous books and papers on BI and data quality.

For a good introduction to business intelligence, consider reading David’s book, “Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s Guide.” This book has been hailed by

prominent data warehousing and business intelligence educators as a resource allowing readers to “gain an understanding of business intelligence, business management disciplines, data warehousing, and how all of the pieces work together.”

His book, “Master Data Management,” has been endorsed by data management industry leaders, and his valuable MDM insights can be reviewed at www.mdmbook.com. David can be reached at loshin@knowledge-integrity.com, or by phone at (301) 754-6350.

Here is the first installment of this series from David:

Business Intelligence Fundamentals – Driving Organizational Improvement

An oft-quoted statement states that one cannot improve that which is not measured. And when we look around our organizations, there are always opportunities for improvements. But an effective outlook for any type of improvement involves some critical concepts to be internalized within any organization striving for self-betterment, including:

1.       Measurement and assessment, as a way of prospecting for areas for improvement;

2.       Evaluation and prioritization, to identify opportunities;

3.       Developing an action plan, intended to adapt processes that can improve the business;

4.       Defining success criteria that indicate when the business objectives have been met;

5.       Implementing the plan so that the improvements can take hold; and

6.       Measuring results against the success criteria.

Gaining visibility and insight into ways to improve our processes is always a good thing, and therefore it is should not be difficult to justify the need for tools and techniques that provide this kind of insight. For the past few years, this is what business intelligence (BI) is all about: a common set of tools, techniques, and procedures used to organize, analyze, and report on strategic performance. It turns out that the value is not limited to strategic activities – any type of business process can be improved when informed by the ability to define metrics, measure, and report on those metrics using the tools and techniques provided by a business intelligence capability.

But business intelligence may begin with organizing data for reporting and analysis, then take you much further than that. The initial approach to reporting provides a review of what has already happened as a way to determine how well your decisions matched the business need.  But different, more sophisticated types of analytical applications can build upon the basic organization of information to actively advise individuals in various roles across an organization:

·         At the organizational level (such as sales compensation planning, financial consolidations, category analysis, marketing directives),

·         At the team-oriented decision making level (collaboration, centrally shared data, workflows, quick and secure analysis and sharing of information), and

·         At the personal decision making processes that inform our daily jobs (such as which of the new customer leads are the most likely to purchase, or how many customers of a specific product within a territory are likely to purchase again).

If all of this is true, then why do so many organizations experience challenges in justifying, funding, planning, and executing a business intelligence strategy? What have been the traditional roadblocks to BI success? How can one evaluate the need for BI and execute against that need? And what types of tools, techniques, and best practices support BI?

The objective of this blog is to explore these, and many other questions, to help readers understand the value of business intelligence, explore the issues in realizing that value, and look at ways to make BI work in the organization. Over the coming months, we will look at issues such as:

·         Assessing BI requirements and expectations

·         Establishing a value proposition for BI

·         Data warehousing and business intelligence

·         Data quality

·         Performance indicators

·         What is “data mining”?

·         Data governance and controlling “data spread”

·         Predictive analytics vs. common sense

·         And many others

We will establish fundamentals and build on that foundation to understanding how to assess the value of business intelligence and selectively introduce those concepts into the organization. Of course, reader input is critical, and hopefully your comments and questions will contribute to the discussion.  There are many opportunities for benefitting from business intelligence, and I am looking forward to exchanging ideas that can help “democratize” BI and bring these ideas down from the ivory tower and put them on anyone’s desktop.

Check back next week to learn about Business Intelligence Consumers – Who are they?

With this introductory post, I’m starting with an overview of the Microsoft Application Platform and subsequent posts will go more in-depth into the hot topics, tools and available resources for each of the capabilities.  

To start with the Microsoft Application Platform is a set of integrated technologies and tools that enable your business to innovate and create strategic advantage.  By enabling you to extend and unlock the value in your existing applications, and to rapidly develop new applications that differentiate you from your competition Microsoft can help you save on time, money and resources.

 To learn more about the Microsoft Application Platform, read the whitepaper. https://download.microsoft.com/download/b/a/4/ba4f8ea2-75ef-425b-a30d-e2e503d8c440/Strategic%20Advantage%20and%20the%20Microsoft%20Application%20Platform.pdf

The Microsoft Application Platform delivers five core capabilities:

·         Business Intelligence www.microsoft.com/bi

·         Service-Oriented Architecture www.microsoft.com/soa – Design flexible systems that can be adapted rapidly to meet your company’s changing business needs and priorities.

·         Development https://www.microsoft.com/applicationplatform/capabilities/development.mspx – Successfully implement a broader Application Life-Cycle Management (ALM) strategy, increase team collaboration and productivity, and improve software quality.

·         User Experience https://www.microsoft.com/applicationplatform/capabilities/userexperience.mspx  - Drive business opportunity and productivity by using the right interface and the right tools. 

·         Data Management https://www.microsoft.com/applicationplatform/capabilities/datamanagement.mspx  – Increase your connectivity and real-time response for Critical Business Information

Next week we’ll talk about some of the latest scoop on Microsoft’s BI Strategy and Approach to the market – stay tuned!!