{"id":1127,"date":"2016-09-02T18:17:44","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T18:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceo-worldwide.com\/blog\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2025-06-11T04:59:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T04:59:53","slug":"really-ready-business-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ceo-worldwide.com\/blog\/really-ready-business-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you really ready for business intelligence?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the day of the simple country store, business intelligence was comprised of knowing what was \u201cin stock,\u201d what was \u201cout of stock,\u201d what it cost to replenish and how much turnover was in a given period. Today, retailers capture how long a product is on a specific shelf and does it sell better here or there \u2013 in which season and at what price and it was sold to whom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every competitive business recognizes the power in knowledge. The definition of \u201cknowledge\u201d is both subjective and obscure. All too often, a business is unable to succinctly express what information it wants and what it will do with this information. Many earnest efforts are made to develop effective data reporting resources. The most common mistakes are costly, time consuming and wasteful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the path less traveled can seem daunting and treacherous – when it comes to business intelligence, it can often be the right one<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because different companies have various needs and goals, a business intelligence system will differ from one company to another. Classic business intelligence is merely a reporting tool for historical performance. Effective analytics and data mining can establish a series of \u201cknowns\u201d and expectations from a series of influencing data points to provide a trending forecast that can lend a few potential outcomes with which managers can make decisions. Much like how a meteorologist relies on readings of barometric pressure; wind speed and direction at different altitudes in conjunction with high and low pressure areas, next week\u2019s weather can be predicted better than relying on whether someone\u2019s arthritic knee is throbbing in pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is common to build reports comprised of disparate data points from functional islands reported separately and conclusions are drawn manually. Without a predefined plan, business intelligence can cause managers to react and the overall enterprise can appear rudderless. Managers struggle with the truth but business intelligence isn\u2019t intended to be there to endorse the business\u2019s decisions or validate a specific strategy but to provide sensitivity to how things are progressing against goals and targets\u2013 and provide alerts if the targets and goals are slipping away – and most importantly, provide insights into which dials to turn that will get everything back on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most common tool managers rely on as business intelligence resources are simple Excel spreadsheets. As a platform for business intelligence, Excel spreadsheets are inherently flawed. The manual entry nature of most Excel spreadsheets simply means that, on average 7-11% of the data in a spreadsheet is an error. In addition, as exposed by most Sarbanes Oxley audits and security penetration tests, spreadsheets rarely have adequate security, protection and process compliance to ensure the integrity of the data. For example, sales people who aren\u2019t likely to make their sales figure for a period are readily there to change data points that reset their expected sales but the changes are rarely reflected in all relevant data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, spreadsheets are portable. This means that there will be numerous versions and even more copies of versions floating around inside and outside of an organization. Those on laptops, tablets and flash drives are the most commonly found to wind up in the wrong hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is, it isn\u2019t about the data but it is in planning for how to use the data to create knowledge an organization can act on. For many organizations developing business intelligence, they work to define what data they want, but this is only a small first step \u2013 not the end. Assessing, first, how an organization will act with what information is the first real step in assessing the genuine use of business intelligence. Figuratively, as if you are planning a trip, establish your destination objective and plot the most desirable route to your current location. Next, establish an honest gap analysis and assessment of the resources, effort and commitment required to move from where the organization is to where it needs to be. This is a very critical step since a swimmer doesn\u2019t set their destination goal to be half way across a lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"business<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Establish how decisions are made before deciding what data you want and when<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Decisions are, typically, a result of cascading inputs. Analytical systems see this as \u201cif this\u2013 then.\u201d Experienced managers use a great deal of information to make decisions. Not all the information is in the same place, in the same applications, in the same form or even in the same functional departments. Inherently, experienced managers gather data points from here and there and the outcome helps guide their actions. Effective business intelligence delivers the collective \u201creasoning\u201d derived from the existing data points to empower managers to make the best decisions based on all the relevant information available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be sensitive to certain realities. In developing effective business intelligence resources, remember that 60% to 80% of the real end users are going to be non-technical. In addition, recognize that what is available is too much for too few. To serve the needs in a separate and compartment alized way will hamper the ability for the organization to operate with a genuine real time dashboard. The components should seam lessly aggregate to a collective overview as easily as it would be to take a snapshot of relevant information in a defined smaller \u201cecosystem.\u201d While it seems obvious, too few business intelligence systems create a picture that easily delivers the sum of its parts as a refined presentation of results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Process \u201cBest Practices\u201d call for defined and communicated workflows \u2013 complete with interdependencies and relationships exposed. Best practices in business intelligence require the same discipline be applied to the flow, importance and dependency on data throughout the enterprise. A great of data will be discovered to be historically relevant but serve little purpose in overall strategic decision making. Users likely defined the need by stating how that data point has always been a metric watched but few can say why it is relevant any longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A business intelligence system can therefore be customized to answer the particular needs of a particular company. The tools and necessary resources can be designed in such a way that it features the company’s unique performance indicators and measurements. This way the business intelligence system will help determine if the company’s strategies and plans are compatible with their goals. This is an important part of the assessment process because it is at this stage that the company’s current status and position is analyzed to determine how it is going to fare in the next few years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To ascertain if your organization is ready for business intelligence, explore how your situation stacks up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Executive Commitment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n