The Next Business Intelligence Project

Business intelligence is a critical investment area in many enterprises. BI projects focus on creating the data warehouse, Extract/transforms/loads, report library, and portal delivery, for example. The opportunity is in making sense of the data, especially market information that provides unique insight that you can obtain faster and more accurately than your competition. Now, that would make an interesting business case for your next BI project proposal. ...

... "Clark, like many data visualizers, believes we're on the front end of a revolution in information presentation. There's a lot of work done called scientific visualization or business intelligence graphics ... " ...

Via Harvard Business Review: Twitter Data Analysis

Software Mashup Unifies Project Management Intelligence

Creative application of mashup brings insight to integrated project engineering information. ...

... "AMEC Paragon uses IBM Mashup Center as a way to unify all key project management information and take action on items all in one place. Paragon's mashup solution includes blending structured data with Enterprise Content Management and IBM FileNet content along with information from various SaaS providers. For example, Paragon can mashup project staffing requirements with budget updates and the project timeline. Then managers can take action, making appropriate changes to the project staffing from within the mashup. " ...

Via IBM: Mashup Capabilities

Business Intelligence in Sailing Application

Sailing is known for its leverage of technology in boat design. Here's neat application of business intelligence integration (courtesy of SAP) with external services to drive dashboard visualizations and track performance in the race, the 2009 SAP 5O5 World Championship. ...

... "Business Objects business intelligence (BI) solutions will help competing teams develop their strategy, evaluate results at the end of each racing day and use that insight to hone their strategy for the next leg of the race. " ...

Via SAP: 2009 SAP 5O5 World Sailing Championship

The Half Life of Data

Some data has a half-life. And, like a radioactive element, it can degrade over time if you let it. You will need a process to sustain its accuracy in order to preserve its usefulness. Otherwise, it becomes a historical snapshot. Know the level of data degradation that you are confronting. It's quality is critical to the business decisions you are enabling. ...

... "Suppose that in six months, 10% of the file has experienced corroded data. If you believe that the rate of corrosion is constant, the implication is that in approximately five years, the list will be worthless. " ...

Via BeyeNETWORK: Data Degradation

Mobile BI on the iPhone

Demo and discussion of mobile business intelligence on the iPhone ...

Business Intelligence Projects: Practical Advice

Use Information to Empower and Satisfy

Software-enabled business processes can become too rigid and restrict a company's ability to do the right thing for customers. Here's interesting use of software analytics and business logic to empower the workforce to increase customers satisfaction levels. ...

... "Many calls are not resolved first time because the person who answers the phone is not authorized to do something – refund something or expedite it. Yet, all too often the data required to make the decision is available at that point. The status of the order, the customer and pricing rules are all known. " ...

Via B-EYE: Customer Decisions

Information On-Demand, a Long Term Perspective

IBM's executive, Ambuj Goyal, provides insights into IBM's long-term plan for the concept of information on-demand. IBM is assembling the pieces of its strategy, including its acquisition of Cognos, to enable the use of information to optimize the enterprise. ...

... "But the journey of optimization has just begun. It will take us in ways we don't understand, even today. We are going after information on demand in real time. " ...

Via InfoWorld: Information on Demand

Organizing for Business Intelligence

Nice reference matrix on segmenting business intelligence needs to enable creation of targeted solutions. ...

... "Table 1 illustrates the characteristics and differences between strategic, tactical and operational BI. The business focus, users involved, currency of the data, and even the types of data used differ significantly, depending on the type of business intelligence. " ...

Via B-Eye: Operational Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Business Case

A business intelligence project proposal can be challenging. Can't calculate a positive NPV or ROI? Don't despair. However, you can link the investment to reducing the cycle time of your current management reporting process ... or, you can identify the incremental value of making certain decisions that you cannot make today. Often, though, BI investments are seen as strategic. ...

... "The survey found that measuring the ROI for BI investment is more challenging that for other IT projects. The overall objective of BI is to improve company performance by putting the right information into the right hands at the right time. " ...

Via TMCnet: BI ROI

Data Speaks, Not Necessarily

The truth is out there. Where? Who knows? Surely the project manager's earned value spreadsheet. ...

... "The most politically savvy employee with the most persuasive arguments - and not necessarily the employee with the most accurate information or most insightful analysis - is deemed the holder of the spreadsheet of truth. " ...

Via DM Review: BI Barriers

Justify Business Intelligence Project

Struggling to justify that next business intelligence project? Try pilots and phased implementations to garner support and build investment momentum. ...

... "Traditional project planning and ROI measurements are ineffective in calculating the value of BI because calculating the potential value of unknown information is similar to a prospector digging for gold. " ...

Via CIO: Project Justification

Business Intelligence Projects: Pick Sponsor Wisely

Business intelligence projects are popular and fairly straightforward to get approved at governance. However, survey data shows that being selective about sponsorship is critical to BI success. Choose your sponsor and steering team wisely, should you receive the nod for investment. ...

... "What raised the red flag for Burton, however, was that 40% of those polled said their business intelligence projects were owned by lower-level business executives. That isn't ideal, Burton said, because that group tends to have tactical rather than strategic roles ... " ...

Business intelligence projects fail without C-level ownership