Recently while waiting for a flight, I had the opportunity to review “Driving Business Insight with Effective BI Strategy” (April 30, 2012) from Forrester, a global research and advisory firm.
The article reminds that a business (any business) cannot survive today by relying on ERP systems and spreadsheets. In fact, it goes further and proposes that even “BI Empowered” organizations need to examine what they currently may have implemented and accept that what they have may be outdated and obsolete.
In building a case for BI, Forrester points out that all CEO’s will have a business strategy that identifies and measures both effectiveness and efficiencies of an organization and this will directly drive its BI strategy.
Business Intelligence Defined
So, what is BI? Forrester explains that BI is:
“a set of methodologies, processes, architectures and technologies – supported by organizational structures, roles and responsibilities – that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information”…
(I think they nailed that)!
The “Business Intelligence Playbook” Forrester has put together is commendable:
Discover -> Plan -> Act -> Optimize
During Discovery, an organization must look at:
- Where is BI technology today? Where is it going?
- How might this trend impact my organization?
- Where exactly is my organization with respect to BI?
During the Planning, an organization must establish a business plan and then use that to drive a BI plan. This will become the “roadmap” used in its pursuit of BI.
The Act will be the execution of the established plan and this includes staffing and training, policy definition and implementation and the building (or buying) of BI tools, applications and solutions.
Finally, during Optimization, Forrester reminds us that a BI strategy must continue to evolve – that it’s “a journey, not a destination”.
This article is a well worth your time. Well done!
