The Times featured a supplement on Business Intelligence entitled "Knowledge is Power". The supplement covered how pervasive BI meets with persistent barriers: if used throughout the organization, business intelligence can transform the entire business but organisational issues continue to limit success.
Altimus were delighted to be asked to contribute to this special focus on Business Intelligence. Here's the result:
The problem
Some business leaders analyse everything, drilling down from top level performance to the minutiae of stationary budgets, simply because they can. It leads to 'paralysis by analysis' because they are attempting to analyse more information than they can process and action effectively.
The solution
The answer is to control data access within the management structure, because information needs context. The context for acquiring data can differ from the context in which it is used. For example, whereas the person responsible for the stationary budget business decisions based on this incomplete information, serious errors of judgement could be made.
The best way to avoid this contextual mismatch is to control data access so that its use is aligned with business accountability, responsibility and authority. This way the person who is closest to the creation context can understand the implication of the data in a meaningful way and act upon it accordingly. This means allowing access to information on no more than one or two levels below an area of responsibility, and following up more detailed questions by other means. Detailed drilldown may well provide an answer to the 'what?' question, but this approach offers insight on the much more important 'why?'
Rob Edmonds of Altimus was quoted amongst other leading BI experts.
For further details of theTimes BI Supplement use this link