Business Intelligence

Despite all the promise of the benefits of analytics and business intelligence, not many organizations have exploited them successfully. Notwithstanding the fact that there are several IT issues (data quality, data integrity, data availability, etc.) contributing to the problem, organizations continue to struggle with analytics. What, in your opinion, is the single most attribute of both human intelligence and organization intelligence that will enable organizations to exploit analytics and business intelligence? What should organizations do to build that capability? 

Answer:

Objective of Business Intelligence is to convert data into meaningful insight which helps gaining competitive advantage in the market. Many companies are delving into BI but all haven’t been successful in their goals. A few reasons why they are not able to use BI to its full potential are:

* Tech-focused BI implementations instead of business-focused BI implementations

* Cost driven model, not value driven

* Ineffective dashboards – focus on data/numbers and not insights from the data

* Rigid processes instead of pragmatic approach

* Lack of clear requirements (they don’t know what to do, don’t ask right Qs, it’s their first time, absence of good analysts) and unstructured information

* No dedicated project mgr or engagement mgr to focus on - dedicated requirements, milestones met, access to resources to business side to define dashboard requirement

If I have to pick a single most important attribute to enable organizations to tap BI to its full capabilities, I would focus on the existing disconnect between IT and business. Aligning business and IT goals would help organizations in developing an effective business model. It can be achieved by:

* Organizations should prepare a solid business case defining why they want BI, carefully considering requirements and strategically aligning BI with business problems. 

* Answer five Y’s and address the...