Business Intelligence Opportunities

Business Intelligence has tried over the years to deliver one-stop shoppig for organizations to improve performance and provide data insight to support decision making. In all the years I have been consulting and providing solutions for customers, I have often felt that after all the hard work and involvement of at team to launch a BI solution, the Business Intelligence part still seems to come up short in one shape or form.

The Quiznos implementation last fall which was the recipient of the 2008 Microsoft Enterprise Insight award is one example.

Although is was quite the impressive solution and we delivered the solution across the entire Microsoft stack to include complex MDX dynamic queries, Performance Point Dashboard on SharePoint, SSIS, and multiple cubes that rocked. Blood sweat and budget overrun went into this initiative. The business opportunity was huge in that the solution was able to detect unrealized revenue opportunity by an order of magnitude and franchisees who were under reporting were revealed down to the meat, bread and cheese.

The Quiznos solution was a small investment because of Microsoft's attractive pricing model, our ability to pull a team together and launch within 6 months. If you weigh the total investment in the solution across the results, one could argue the ROI was huge and compelling. So why would I say it fell short?

Although Performance Point was intended to provide performance management, it helped but not 100%. The problem lurks in the fact that in order for a Business Intelligence solution to be effective, it must be tied to an organizations ability to influence the results. In the Quiznos case, the BI solution fell short of setting up programs and business processes to respond to the results of the data without adding to staff and investment. The results revealed an organization which was not prepared to add to staff or throw additional budget to manage franchisee out of compliance. The tool was expected to do this.

For this reason I believe there are additional opportunities for business analysts and BI vendors to get better with their software solution by providing the necessary “follow through” to impact results.

All BI tools can display results on a dashboard or scorecard, the good and the bad; they can integrate complex data structures, handle dynamic queries and provide much more technology savvy bells and whistles. However, without a doubt they must be more dynamic and flexible to integrate business processes capabilities to jumpstart programs with appropriate workflow to streamline what I call “response to intervention.” Without this, organizations will remain trapped in their inability to influence the results with their BI solution investment.

My linked in account

Sure, I have just set this up, but I am not going to leave you here at a dead end. Here is my linkedin account (Brenda Stokes)

Stay tuned for more on my word on bi (business intelligence). Word up.

For people trying to find me, I am a Colorado resident, who currently works at ProLink Solutions in Colorado.