It’s Time for a User-Driven Enterprise BI Strategy
Even after doing their best for over 20 years to build centralized, scalable information architecture, Forrester surveys find that only a small percentage of organizations' data is actually converted to useful information in time to leverage it for better insight and decisions.
At both strategic and tactical levels, much of this quagmire can be explained by the fundamental disconnect in goals, objectives, priorities, and methods between technology management professionals and the business users they should ideally serve.
This report will provide insight into the inherent conflict between roles to reach a clear understanding of why the business and technology management BI relationship is broken and how these groups can align in order to win, serve, and retain customers.
We've also pulled out the first several pages of the whitepaper for you to read. Download the PDF on the right to read the rest.
It’s Time For A User-Driven Enterprise BI Strategy
Why Read This Report
John Wanamaker, considered the father of modern advertising, said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the problem is I don’t know which half.” Today, we can ask the same question of a company’s investment in business intelligence (BI), analytics, and big data. Even after doing their best for over 20 years to build centralized, scalable information architecture, Forrester surveys always find that only a small percentage of organizations’ data is actually converted to useful information in time to leverage it for better insight and decisions. At both strategic and tactical levels, much of this quagmire can be explained by the fundamental disconnect in goals, objectives, priorities, and methods between technology management professionals and the business users they should ideally serve. This report will help AD&D pros deconstruct the inherent conflict between roles to reach a clear understanding of why the business and technology management BI relationship is broken. We will then present our readers with an innovative action plan that gets both technology management and business professionals aligned in order to win, serve, and retain customers.
Business Agility Hinges On Agile BI
The power to define how business is won has shifted into the hands of digitally empowered customers — both businesses and consumers — displacing information and control over distribution or manufacturing. With mobile devices, the Internet, and all-but-unlimited access to information about products, services, prices, and deals, customers are now well informed about companies and their products, and are able to quickly find alternatives and to use peer pressure to drive change. Forrester calls this the age of the customer. But not all enterprises have readily embraced this new cycle; in fact just the opposite is true — there has been over 70% turnover for the Global Fortune 500 companies over the past 10 years. If there’s one common thread running through the profile of most of the companies which disappeared in that time period, it is that they did not succeed in managing change. Business agility — reacting to fast changing business needs — is what enables businesses to thrive amid ever accelerating market changes and dynamics. What does the age of the customer mean in pragmatic and actionable terms to AD&D professionals working on BI initiatives? Forrester believes that in order to survive and succeed in the age of the customer, by focusing on and prioritizing business agility, AD&D pros should:
- Treat their business users just like customers — even when they are wrong, they are right. Forrester finds that agile organizations make decisions differently by embracing a new, more grass-roots-based management approach. In addition to top down BI requirements, mandated by management, employees in the trenches, in individual business units, are the ones who are in close touch with customer problems, market shifts, and process inefficiencies. These workers are often in the best position to understand challenges and opportunities and to make decisions to improve the business. It is only when responses to change come from within, from these highly aware and empowered employees, do enterprises become agile, competitive, and successful. And it is only when technology professionals start listening to all business stakeholders, not just senior managers, that a more realistic picture of an effective and efficient BI environment becomes clear and actionable.
- Embrace business agility, which sometimes trumps a single version of the truth. A modern, agile world is not binary. A single version of the truth is relative to who’s asking the question, and other contexts. If it is good and timely and addresses relevant customer data needs, then that takes higher priority in the age of the customer.
- Enable business agility with Agile BI best practices and platforms. Agile enterprises must gather customer and market knowledge and rapidly incorporate it into decisions. In order to support and promote business agility, enterprise knowledge workers must be empowered with easy access to agile, flexible, and responsive enterprise business intelligence tools and applications.
