Johannesburg, 03 Jul 2009
Nobody can argue against the fact that we now live in an age of too much information. Whether from a personal or business perspective, there is a constant barrage of data hitting every person all the time in the form of personal correspondence, advertising, support or entertainment.
This endless stream of information also occurs in the workplace where, unfortunately, it is not always relevant to the recipient's job. Getting relevant information to the appropriate people is where business intelligence (BI) is supposed to make a difference.
“Many BI implementations of the past were aimed at providing valuable information to a limited number of people involved in strategy and planning,” says Marc Scheepbouwer, MD of Intellient. “And while the data delivered allowed for improved planning and business decision-making, by limiting the number of BI users, management limited the return on investment (ROI) of the system.”
“If, as noted by Microsoft, 15% to 30% of a knowledge worker's time is spent looking for information, consider how much more productivity and revenue companies could gain by making sure the right information is available to the right people at the right time and in the right format. Moreover, consider how much more streamlined business processes will run if workers are empowered to take action when it is needed with all the supporting information resources at their fingertips.”
The ability to make information available wherever it is needed, breaking down old silos and territorial claims of ownership, is called information democracy. Coupled with BI tools that are broadly distributed and easy to use, information democracy empowers organisations by deconstructing strategy to a point where it is relevant to each and every user.
“When the organisation's strategy is translated into a concept every person can understand in the context of their own jobs, each individual is empowered to excel in their specific functional area and add value to the firm,” adds Scheepbouwer. “And is the ultimate goal of management not to see every employee focused on outcomes that support the corporate strategy?”
Of course, the above scenario is a Utopian ideal. A study by TDWI Research in 2005 indicated that, on average, only 18% of potential BI users actually use BI tools on a regular basis in their jobs. That means 82% of workers who could benefit from these tools are still suffering under the onslaught of meaningless information.
In companies matching the above statistics, it can come as no surprise that business performance management (BPM) is still a pipe dream. BPM is the logical extension of BI as it takes the quality data BI systems provide from company-wide structured and unstructured data stores, aligns it to the business strategy, distributes relevant portions to the appropriate people and monitors the resulting activities and results.
BI and BPM are processes, not products or quick-fix solutions. Cindi Howson, president of ASK, noted in a Hyperion Expert Insight column: “BPM across the enterprise requires an enterprise BI platform, one that is treated as a strategic asset.”
Scheepbouwer says companies need to start with a BI system, sponsored and driven from an executive position, designed to provide users with basic access to reliable data. The resulting temptation to bask in the benefits of simple access to relevant data should be avoided at all costs. The ultimate solution is not delivering pretty reports, but insight and control.
The solution to the never-ending stream of information workers are fighting against is therefore not to find a way to stop it, but to use BI to control it. This means ensuring useless information is filtered out and each user receives only the data needed for their jobs, no matter where it is sourced.
Then, once the right data is being delivered at the right time to the right people, organisations can focus on the next step of BPM. At this stage, corporate strategy defined in the boardroom automatically finds its way down the ladder, deconstructed into contextual information that has meaning to individual users and ensures their efforts support the overarching goals of the enterprise.
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