Got a thought or idea for our BI Bloggers ? Email biinactionblog@ebizq.net
BI in Action Blog
|
« Survey: BI is Hot, Hot, Hot | Main | 'BI 2.0' -- It Was Inevitable » April 18, 2007BI in Real Life: What's it All Mean? 
My esteemed ebizQ blogging colleague Joe McKendrick posted some interesting results from an InformationWeek survey of 500 IT executives regarding BI. Herewith, some further thoughts on what those results said and might mean. From Joe's post: "Half of the respondents intend to increase their BI budgets from 2006, and 40% say spending will remain the same." So 10 percent either plan to spend less on BI and/or have no idea at all what their BI spending plans might be. Hmm. More (semi-)seriously, I can't help but wonder about the 40 percent who plan to keep their spending where it is. Are they doing so because their earlier investments are already delivering sufficient business benefits? I'd find that hard to believe, based on anecdotal evidence from IT and business executives with whom I've spoken. More likely, they are leveling off from earlier spending levels to focus more on getting what they've bought to work with what they've got – and to deliver more clear, demonstrable, and measurable benefit. (As with business process management (BPM), I bet many BI efforts start blowing through money before success criteria and metrics are adequately defined and anointed as requirements.) Again, from Joe's post: "What are the most challenging issues around BI? A majority of IT executives, 53%, say their BI implementations are hampered by integration and compatibility issues. Along the same lines, 78% would like to see BI vendors better address integration and compatibility issues….Forty-eight percent say the tools are difficult to use, and 45% wonder where the ROI is with business intelligence." These results appear to underscore my point about slowing BI investments in the face of mounting integration challenges. Again, as with BPM, key challenges include difficulty of use, integration, and ROI. (By the way, I've heard said that given increasing focus on compliance, governance, and risk management, "ROI" stands less for "return on investment" and more for "reducing odds (of) incarceration." BI clearly has a role to play in all of these areas. But the tools are going to have to get easier to use, and gain greater forensic documentation and reporting features, to play those roles in ways that pass regulatory muster. Regulators hate deviations and exceptions, so consistent, efficient processes must support and be embodied in BI tools and strategies to avoid waving those particular red flags. My favorite results of the survey, however, are those that Joe saved for last. Almost two-thirds of respondents are considering acquiring BI from a software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor, with 27 percent saying such an approach is "extremely likely." Well, Business Objects SA, BI solution vendor and purveyor of the wildly popular Crystal Reports, has offered CrystalReports.com, a Web-based report-sharing facility, for almost exactly a year now. More recently, Business Objects announced the ability to install and run CrystalReports.com access directly within Salesforce.com, Inc.'s customer relationship management (CRM) SaaS offering. So more BI-focused SaaS offerings are definitely coming. Whether or not these will be any easier or cheaper for IT and/or business decision-makers to mix, match, and integrate remains to be seen, and "mileage" will definitely vary. Meanwhile, though, those decision-makers should be spending less time and money installing purported "solutions" (and responding to surveys about them, for that matter!). They should be spending more time asking and answering the questions that will help them approach BI, BPM, and related issues from a perspective that focuses on benefit to the business, and cooperation among all affected constituencies. I bet that these challenges will make selecting a BI tool or vendor seem relatively simple – and result in a kind of "full employment act" for BI advisors, consultants, implementers, and even lowly pundits such as myself and Joe McKendrick. We'll see. Meanwhile, how is your organization pursuing BI, internally or for clients and customers? Let us know, and let's see where the discussion leads next. Posted by mdortch in BI • Business Intelligence | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us Trackback Pings TrackBack URL for this entry: |
