by Linda Williams on June 6, 2011
Does your company’s leadership think that having a robust Business Intelligence function is only viable for large corporations? Think again. In today’s global world, with information shared in the blink of an eye it is imperative that all companies know their numbers and manage by them. The information that a Business Intelligence (BI) function can provide can mean the difference between growth and competitive decline. Utilizing BI has been proven to result in significant competitive advantages both for small companies as well as large corporations.
Business Intelligence Planning
Initiating a Business Intelligence function in your company does not need to be excessively expensive but does require careful planning. There are five key steps in developing a plan for a BI function that, if followed, increase your chance for success. The level of complexity required for these steps is dependent on the size and complexity of your organization. Small companies can rapidly design a BI program to accelerate the process with the help of a consultant with BI experience.
The five steps are:
- Evaluate the company’s strategic objectives for critical success factors;
- Design the Performance Measurement Blueprint;
- Perform a Gap Analysis;
- Develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs); and
- Develop the high level plan for Reporting – Scorecards, Dashboards, Reports
It is important to involve top management early in this process. Their support will be critical to getting funding for the BI program once the analysis has been done. Depending on the company culture however a draft of a proposal detailing the potential costs and benefits early on may be beneficial. A clear demonstration of the need for a BI program can facilitate its approval and funding.
It is always best to start the planning process with an evaluation of the company’s strategic objectives. To maximize the probability of success, any BI program should be aligned to the mission, vision, and the strategic objectives of the organization. Another critical success factor is documenting the benefits of a BI program up front in order to garner the support of top management or ownership.
Once you have determined how to align to the strategic objectives take a look at what are the expected levels of performance in order to meet or exceed these objectives. Determine any dependencies between objectives in this review. This will help you determine where you can expect cost savings and cost avoidances. An initial draft of non-tangible benefits should be developed at this time. Common benefits include improving quality, improving customer retention, gaining market share, reducing costs, meeting regulatory requirements, and fostering continuous improvement and innovation.
The next two steps are to identify the high level requirements for data collection and to perform a gap analysis. The gap analysis will identify any gaps in current capabilities to measure, analyze, and present the elements of the performance plan. From there you can start to develop the KPIs that are needed to track performance. The last step of the planning process is to determine the high level plan for what reporting components will be needed. Generally scorecards and reports will be needed for managers and staff while dashboards will be needed for management.
Before you can complete the proposal for establishing a BI program you will need to determine the expected costs and benefits for presentation to management. This involves determining how the program will be designed. There are several options to consider in developing your capabilities for initiating a BI function. Each option will have different costs, timelines, and pros and cons associated with it.
The most popular options for launching a BI program are:
- Outsourcing a portion or the entire function;
- Purchasing a package through one of the many BI vendors; or
- Starting small with an in-house team.
The costs and the benefits for each of these options should be included in the BI program proposal. For a small company the third option is often the best initial choice due to the lower cost. However the cost of outsourcing and vendor packages can often be competitive and can decrease the time to adoption.
With all aspects of the BI plan identified the last step is to put them together in a proposal that clearly shows the associated costs and the benefits of having a BI program. The most compelling benefit in today’s increasingly competitive environment is to gain the advantages that an analytically focused strategy can give to your company’s success regardless of its size.
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by Marc Watley on December 6, 2010
About a year ago, I was the unfortunate victim of a robbery. At gunpoint. Right…no fun at all. Anyhow, in addition to my wallet, the idiot-with-gun also got my laptop. In an instant, I’d acutely learned the importance of backing up one’s data.
Now truth be told, it could have been much worse insofar as losing laptop data. I’ve used a BlackBerry for years, and so what I’d argue was the most important data on my laptop – contacts, notes (to this day I take all meeting notes via BlackBerry), email, and calendar – was still intact locally on my BlackBerry (which I thankfully kept) and also remotely on my corporate Exchange server. What was lost however, were scores of other notes, business plans, presentation decks, whitepaper drafts, spreadsheet exercises, some music (sigh) – gone forever in the flash of a second. I will say that I have benefited from the misfortune – I’ve since used an online backup service – Dropbox – to ensure safe, recoverable storage of everything on my laptop. (This has been a life saver and a service which I can’t recommend enough.) Also, it was a good excuse to finally make the switch from PC to Mac. Happiness.
Anyhow, two Captain Obvious lessons learned from this experience:
- Backup is CRITICAL
- Anything can happen at any time
These axioms ring even truer for businesses – of all types and sizes – who are increasingly more connected to their customers and suppliers through a plethora of systems and applications. Whether your shop is a five-location dentist practice or a multibillion-dollar technology firm, efficient backup (along with a well-planned recovery strategy) is absolutely key to staying in business. If you’re reading this thinking, ‘yeah but nothing will happen to me/my business’, I gently refer you to my opening paragraph and also to #2 above. Several options exist – for personal use, Small/Medium Businesses, and enterprise alike.
A few suggestions:
- Dropbox. Services such as Dropbox are highly recommended for personal files (good if you need to occasionally share files with others as well). Simple to use (auto-synchronizes your files between local and online) and runs $9.99 per month (or $99 per year) for 50GB of storage space. Learn more at http://www.dropbox.com/features.
- Servosity. Servosity provides an agentless, on-demand backup solution suited particularly well for SMB and mid-market enterprise shops. Tape libraries are still in widespread use within datacenters today, and Servosity provides an efficient alternative to this. Data is compressed and encrypted before being mirrored to Servosity’s Data Vault. Backups can be managed by OS or application, scheduled, and restored (downloaded) via secure web browser. (Disclosure: The company I work for, Datacenter Trust, currently includes Servosity in their services portfolio.) Learn more at http://www.servosity.com.
- nScaled. For enterprise shops, nScaled provides a unique approach to backup and recovery: continuous on-premise data protection, offsite backup, and remote failover. Data is continually stored both within your datacenter as well as at a remote highly-available facility. Using a secure web interface, data can be recovered and restored either on-premise or from the remote location within 15 minutes or less. Supported server platforms include Windows, Linux, and IBM AIX. (Disclosure: The company I work for, Datacenter Trust, currently includes nScaled in their services portfolio.) Learn more at http://www.nscaled.com.
Other solutions to check out include Carbonite, CommVault’s Simpana, and the recently-launched Whitewater appliance by Riverbed Technology. Whether your need is personal or business, there are many options available for synchronizing, retaining, and restoring your data. This is a must-do, as continuous access to personal and work data becomes increasingly important. As Foghorn Leghorn would say, pay attention when I’m talkin’ to ya! Don’t let some nutball with a gun or, say, mother nature with an earthquake, teach you a lesson the hard way about keeping ALL of your data continuously backed up and quickly recoverable!
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