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When beginning or continuing an investment in a Business Intelligence (BI) system, a company must look at how it will be able to garner the largest Return on Investment (ROI) for such an initiative. There are many factors to take into consideration in reaching the largest possible ROI. These factors can be grouped into direct and indirect benefits:
Direct Benefits
- Quantifiable cost savings related the more efficient access to data. This allows analysts to spend time analyzing and not gathering information.
- Automation of process, leading to real time savings and greater productivity.
- Shorter budgeting and financial planning cycles with reduced effort, allowing staff to continue doing their jobs.
- Improved efficiencies in operational groups such as inventory management, IT, facilities management, etc.
- Reducing support costs associated with reporting while terminating legacy reports and systems that go unused.
Indirect Benefits
- A single version of the “truth”, official company records and reports, leading to less rework and manipulation of data by individuals to justify differing views of what that data means to their groups.
- Facilitates containment of costs based on targeted areas as opposed to just saying every group’ cuts costs by 20%, as an example.
- Allows for the ability to run “what-if” analyses, the results of which often lead to better decision making.
- Improved customer service, resulting in increased sales.
- Allows for the long-term alignment of operations and strategy.
There are many other direct and indirect efficiencies and benefits that can be realized through the proper planning and implementation of BI tools and systems. The more end-user groups that participate in the planning of a company’s BI system, the easier it becomes to change the ultimate corporate culture. Once the buy-in from the users is attained, the real savings begin, and a platform to accelerate corporate growth now exists.
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