Starting a bi program

Drafting the data integration process. Define data sources and make sure your BI tool can assess them. Make sure the data is of high quality and set up processes for data preparation. Consider the architecture of a data warehouse. Ensuring data presentation.

Establish what types of reports and dashboards your system will display based on end-user needs and KPIs. Use our guide for some data visualization ideas where we also list some handy tools and libraries. Performing user acceptance tests.

Then you prepare test cases, choose the time of testing and pick the required tools. Performing training. End users should be trained to understand data basics and use a visualization platform. Before that, non-BI proficient members of the governance team should be trained to understand data transformation phases. Apart from training, prepare to serve users and address their problems. Set up the feedback process and decide how you can react to it as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

Having a user support framework means that you cover them from three stand points:. Data education support — provide the knowledge base to let users find answers they have about incoming data: metadata, data purpose, metrics, data source, and so on. Tool support — if possible, choose the tool with end users, then establish the agreed timeframes for issue response, and communicate what channels or contact they can use to get support.

Business support — make sure end users not only understand data but know how to derive value from it. Assign mentors in each department to help users learn how to provide value via BI tools, what metrics and dimensions to look for, and how to pinpoint data trends. Here, a roadmap is a visual document demonstrating deliverables at different stages of implementation within the timeline.

By this step, you already have all the data you need to organize and schedule on the map, you only need to set up time frames and deliverables for every task. Below is an example of such a roadmap spanning three quarters. It has deliverables and milestones and tasks are divided by teams.

The logic behind a strategy document is that it will be a point of reference for the whole organization and will be used for the strategy presentation. What sections should go into this document? How will you measure the success of your BI strategy? Qualitative metrics would include things like the number of data access requests made by end users, increased productivity, or that deadlines are met more often. As we mentioned a few times in the article, a BI strategy is always created with a corporate strategy in mind.

How will BI help you achieve your business goals? This is also the task of enterprise architecture — the practice of finding how tech can boost your overall goals. Filling in the templates, you can draft your requirements and align new processes without losing the vision. They are also useful for communicating your idea to the team and upgrading your project indefinitely.

Odds are you know your business needs business intelligence BI. Over the past 5 years, big data and BI became more than just data science buzzwords.

In response to this increasing need for data analytics, business intelligence software have flooded the market. With the benefits being numerous and the costs of not having good BI growing, it is easy to want to quickly adopt a solution. Unfortunately this approach could be disastrous. Whether you are starting from scratch, moving past spreadsheets, or looking to migrate to a new platform: you need a business intelligence strategy and roadmap in place. We previously discussed business intelligence for small business.

Now we are going to take that a step further with the following 11 steps to a better business intelligence strategy. These steps are imperative for businesses, of all sizes, looking to successfully launch and manage their business intelligence.

A business intelligence strategy refers to all the steps you undertake in order to implement business intelligence in your company. It goes all the way to diving in the BI process, defining the stakeholders and main actors, to assessing the situation, defining the goals and finding the performance indicators that will help you measure your efforts to achieve these goals.

You define the strategy in terms of vision, organization, processes, architecture and solutions, and then draw a roadmap based on the assessment, the priority and the feasibility.

Business intelligence implementation is not an easy task, as it requires a lot of preparation work beforehand, gathers many different actors and will involve expenses. But the rewards outperform by far its costs, and it is well know that business intelligence ROI is real even if it is sometimes hard to quantify. The costs of not implementing it are more damaging especially in the long-term. Applying business intelligence is important — but the way you do it matters just as much.

This is why having a BI strategy is extremely important: no sailor ever threw their ship in the sea without a map, a telescope and a compass. Think of your strategy just as that: defining the steps on your BI roadmap, following your goals as a compass to stay in the right direction, and investing and using the right tools to get a deep view in your information and understand it. It takes time and knowledge to make the best out of such asset, as well as a solid planification.

The information a business gathers is filled with precious insights that will help it measure its performance, understand their customers, identify competitive advantages, and much more.

A strategy will give your solution a direction, and a goal. Business intelligence without strategy might bring up some insights, it will not lead you where you want to head to. Having a BI strategy in place before implementing — or just selecting — a system lets you find the perfect match for your needs. It will also facilitate and unclutter the decision-making process, which usually is the goal number one of BI.

The benefits of business intelligence are numerous and undeniable; now you just need to get there and reap them! When you have the right business intelligence solution, it is easy to identify trends, pitfalls and opportunities early on.

We are going to be honest here, even the best software needs some initial heavy lifting to maximize its potential. If you go in with the right mindset you will be prepared to address issues like complicated data problems, change management resistance, waning sponsorship, IT reluctance and user adoption challenges.

Reminding stakeholders, and yourself, of the pain points that necessitated it will encourage the process forward. It will be worth it. Odds are everyone at your organization could benefit from increased data access and insights. Right off the bat you must determine who your key stakeholders are. Here are some tips on how to get started:. Data analytics is a big trend in the business world today and for good reason.

However, as with everything in business, there is no one-size-fits approach. Every business is different, with unique needs. However, by looking at what you want to achieve in the business and working backwards, instead of buying-in a system and then adapting your organisational culture to it accordingly, you are likely to uncover new and better ways for growing your business with the help of your business intelligence system. Here are the latest Insider stories. More Insider Sign Out.

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