Business Intelligence Strategy A Practical Guide for Achieving BI Excellence

by Boyer, John; Frank, Bill; Green, Brian; Harris, Tracy; Van De Vanter, Kay

• ISBN13: 9781583473627
• ISBN10: 1583473629
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-01
• Publisher: MC Press

Summary

Geared toward IT management and business executives seeking to excel in business intelligence initiatives, this practical guide explores creating business alignment strategies that help prioritize business requirements, build organizational and cultural strategies, increase IT efficiency, and promote user adoption. Business intelligence, together with business analytics and performance management, eliminates information overload by organizing the massive amounts of information available in the modern enterprise. Addressing the challenges of business intelligence operations, this resource supports the goal of better business decision making and identifying unrealized opportunities. Each chapter includes a checklist of recommended approaches and a strategy overview template.

Author Biography

John Boyer leads the business intelligence advisory team at the Nielsen Company. He lives in Chicago. Bill Frank has more than 25 years of experience in decision support and business intelligence and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Brian Green is manager of business intelligence and performance management at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee. He lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Tracy Harris is senior manager in business intelligence excellence at IBM and is responsible for chairing the BI Excellence Advisory board and managing the BI Excellence Program and Champion initiative at IBM. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Kay Van De Vanter is the enterprise BI architect and business intelligence competency center lead at the Boeing Company. She lives in Seattle.

Table of Contents

About the Authors	p. v
Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
The Business Value of Successful Business Intelligence	p. 2
The BI Excellence Strategy Framework	p. 5
Consider Your Level of Maturity	p. 6
Business Intelligence Excellence	p. 7
Strategies for Success	p. 8
The Business Alignment Strategy	p. 8
The Organizational and Cultural Strategy	p. 9
The Technology Strategy	p. 10
Building Excellence in BI and PM	p. 11
Defining Your Business Alignment Strategy	p. 13
An Introduction to Strategic Management Approaches	p. 14
Assessing Your Current Situation	p. 17
Where Do We Start?	p. 18
Mapping Corporate Objectives to Bottom-Up Needs	p. 20
The Bottom-Up Approach	p. 20
The Top-Down Approach	p. 22
How Successful Companies Make It Work	p. 23
Developing Metrics and the KPI Design	p. 24
The Performance Manager: A Framework for Strategy	p. 24
Constructing a Methodology
Toward Performance Management	p. 26
Determining Priorities	p. 27
Analysis and Priority	p. 28
Defining the Business Case	p. 29
Increasing IT Efficiency	p. 30
Incresing Business Efficiency	p. 30
Improving Business Effectiveness	p. 31
Summary	p. 32
Checklist of Recommended Approaches	p. 33
Business Alignment Strategy Overview	p. 34
Organizational and Behavioral Strategy	p. 35
Understanding Your Business Culture	p. 37
Communicating the Goals	p. 38
Transitioning the Culture by Active Team-Based Collaboration	p. 39
Executive Support	p. 41
Mining for Executive Buy-In	p. 42
Understanding Senior Executive Priorities	p. 42
Tactics for Engaging the Executive Set	p. 44
Keep the Conversation Going	p. 45
Value of an Organizational Structure	p. 46
Defining the BI Competency Center (BICC)	p. 47
Organizational Design Approaches	p. 50
Goals and Objectives of the BICC	p. 51
Developing the Scope of the BICC	p. 54
BICC Roles and Personnel	p. 54
Funding Models	p. 55
Strategically Position the Organization for the BICC	p. 57
Maturity of a BICC	p. 58
User Adoption	p. 58
Creating Technology Standards	p. 58
Converging IT and Business Users	p. 60
Providing Accessibility	p. 60
Providing Product Management	p. 61
Ensuring Timely, Trusted Information	p. 62
Communication	p. 62
Showcasing	p. 63
How to Demonstrate Value and Communicate Successes	p. 63
Training	p. 66
Communication in the Requirement and Design Process	p. 68
Managing Change	p. 70
Checklist of Recommended Approaches	p. 70
Organizational and Behavioral Strategy Overview	p. 72
Technology Strategy	p. 75
Standardization and Consolidation	p. 77
Standardization Criteria	p. 80
What Drives Consolidation	p. 81
Matching User Roles and Capabilities	p. 83
Gaining IT Efficiencies	p. 85
Fragmentation and Reversion	p. 86
Using the Business Value Hierarchy	p. 87
A Larger TCO Framework	p. 88
Leveraging Existing Investments	p. 89
Leveraging Existing Suites	p. 90
Delivering the Information Platform	p. 91
Open Data Access	p. 92
Consistent Business Information	p. 93
Information Govermance	p. 94
Gaining Confidence in Information	p. 95
Deployment Considerations	p. 97
Deployment Paradigms	p. 98
Choosing the Right Deployment Option	p. 99
Processes for Change and Development	p. 101
Delivering a Successful Technology Strategy	p. 102
Checklist of Recommended Approaches	p. 102
Technology Strategy Overview	p. 104
Summary	p. 107
Notes	p. 113
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.