The Smart Strategy for Business Intelligence
The term "Business Intelligence" (or BI, for its acronym in english) is used for grouping strategies, information systems and services they provide to a company, institution or project with added value on the data accumulated during the operation. It is a set of extremely valuable tools to support decision-making and an auxiliary of great importance in monitoring and improving performance. However, not all projects or initiatives of BI comply with this mandate. For that the BI is successful, you must represent just what its name describes: Intelligence and Business.
The BI initiatives implemented in a company usually give a strong jolt to managers. The information generated by performing the processes of data collection and its subsequent transformation into tools of analysis, reporting, and monitoring score shows the real situation and raw the status of the operation, as well as its deviations or misalignment with the business strategy. I soil equate this event as opening the door of a closet that it takes years without organize: The open and turn on the light, we see a warehouse full of objects, many covered in cobwebs, other rust, some damaged. In addition we can see that you rush out roaches, mice, and all kinds of critters that were nested there. In the business is just like, only that in place of closet we have transactional databases and in place of data objects. That is why before that nothing, the BI implementation must be intelligent. The BI initiatives should be promoted and accepted by the high address, and must be the joint responsibility of the business areas and the areas of systems which are carried out and is used correctly. BI must be used to create the "only truth", thus becoming a trusted source and a solid backing for the improvement of performance. In addition, you must be in constant growth, since the basis of BI is to follow a life cycle that involves constant revision.
The implement BI in a smart way to help make the process a business. When creating our initiatives in a way that will be driven by senior management and implemented by integrated teams enable investment - both time and resources - has a high return, with a proportion cost/benefit that is good for the company. The strategy must be clear and widely disseminated among the responsible. Planning should be appropriate, with points of revision to short, medium and long term. Monitoring should be carried out with a platform that is easy to access and use, or at least it is easy to learn. And finally, the results obtained should be used to make decisions to improve the performance.
If the BI strategy does not take into account these points, there is a high risk to become a headache for those involved and a bottomless barrel for resources. But if we act properly, the rewards are many and soon we will have a closet clean, tidy and free of vermin.
* The author is Sr Business Intelligence Consultant for Lumina Software in Monterrey, and before writing this article I had just finished helping a public institution to commandeer and eliminate multilpes vermin that were found in the closet.
The term "Business Intelligence" is used for grouping strategies, information systems and services they provide to a company, institution or project with added value on the data accumulated during the operation. It is a set of extremely valuable tools to support decision-making and an auxiliary of great importance in monitoring and improving performance. However, not all projects or initiatives of BI comply with this mandate. For that the BI is successful, you must represent just what its name describes: Intelligence and Business.
The BI initiatives implemented in a company usually give a strong jolt to managers. The information generated by performing the processes of data collection and its subsequent transformation into tools of analysis, reporting, and monitoring score shows the real situation and raw the status of the operation, as well as its deviations or misalignment with the business strategy. I soil equate this event as opening the door of a closet that it takes years without organize: The open and turn on the light, we see a warehouse full of objects, many covered in cobwebs, other rust, some damaged. In addition we can see that you rush out roaches, mice, and all kinds of critters that were nested there. In the business is just like, only that in place of closet we have transactional databases and in place of data objects. That is why before that nothing, the BI implementation must be intelligent. The BI initiatives should be promoted and accepted by the high address, and must be the joint responsibility of the business areas and the areas of systems which are carried out and is used correctly. BI must be used to create the "only truth", thus becoming a trusted source and a solid backing for the improvement of performance. In addition, you must be in constant growth, since the basis of BI is to follow a life cycle that involves constant revision.
The implement BI in a smart way to help make the process a business. When creating our initiatives in a way that will be driven by senior management and implemented by integrated teams enable investment - both time and resources - has a high return, with a proportion cost/benefit that is good for the company. The strategy must be clear and widely disseminated among the responsible. Planning should be appropriate, with points of revision to short, medium and long term. Monitoring should be carried out with a platform that is easy to access and use, or at least it is easy to learn. And finally, the results obtained should be used to make decisions to improve the performance.
If the BI strategy does not take into account these points, there is a high risk to become a headache for those involved and a bottomless barrel for resources. But if we act properly, the rewards are many and soon we will have a closet clean, tidy and free of vermin.
* The author is Sr Business Intelligence Consultant for Lumina Software in Monterrey, and before writing this article I had just finished helping a public institution to commandeer and eliminate multilpes vermin that were found in the closet.