Ensure a Truly Efficient BI Improvement Process

Implementing a BI solution is an accomplishment, concurrently only the beginning. To fully grasp the benefits, BI maintenance and continuous improvements are required. However, an on paper improvement process is insufficient, as a truly efficient process requires organizations to manage the often-forgotten dimensions of ownership, linkage and solution harmonization.

An on paper efficient BI improvement process is insufficient

Implementing a robust Business Intelligence (BI) solution presents its challenges, but it is only the beginning. To fully leverage BI for smarter decision-making, understanding business performance, gaining actionable insights, staying ahead of the competition, and bolstering customer satisfaction, BI maintenance and continuous improvements are essential.

An effective BI improvement process might appear straightforward, being initiated by a structured business-driven intake, followed by collaboration between Business and Digital sides to jointly plan the improvement. Digital then develops according to the specification, which the Business verifies and validates before receiving final delivery and giving sign-off. However, besides having an efficient BI improvement process on paper, there are often forgotten dimensions to enable the required changes in organization to sustain long-term success.

Dimensions for a truly efficient BI improvement process

For an organization to set up for a truly efficient BI improvement process, there are main dimensions that must be considered:

Business-driven ownership: Clear BI governance built upon business-driven ownership throughout the process is key to gain true value from improvements and ensure alignment with the strategic objectives. This requires organizations to clearly define and, more importantly, anchor responsibilities and accountability for each BI aspect, for instance through information owners.

Business and Digital linkage: Organizations must build new competencies to establish common ground between Business and Digital, to effectively transpose business requirements into technical specifications, achieving fulfillment of needs whilst fostering seamless collaboration between Business and Digital.

“Common understanding between Business and Digital is increasingly vital for companies”

Solution harmonization: The BI solution will by nature evolve over time to adopt to changing business landscapes. Thereby, organizations must ensure solution harmonization and stability, by maintaining a complete view, often via Digital, to optimize improvements to the current BI solution. Failure to do so will lead to an unstructured, demanding and less user-friendly solution.

A truly efficient BI improvement process to seize benefits

If an organization can successfully handle these dimensions, it can achieve a truly efficient BI improvement process to capitalize on the opportunities BI provides and seize all the benefits.