Have You Ever Tried to Develop a Business Intelligence Strategy?
Or Have You Tried To Answer The Question "What is BI Strategy?"
If so, you'll know that it's difficult because the priorities of the CIO often are not aligned with the priorities of the Business Owners. But it absolutely critical to achieving competitive advantage.
So what do you do? Many high performance organizations have found success by using a very structured approach to developing a SAP BI Strategy.
BI Implementation Strategy Approaches
But there are a few things you should know before you develop an enterprise wide BI Reporting Strategy to ensure success. After all, developing a SAP BI Strategy is a 'can't fail' task for you and your team. You probably have many BI questions and answers you're seeking as part of developing your BI implementation strategy.
This post will tell you what you need to know to make sure you select a BI Reporting Strategy development approach that will let you successfully build an enterprise wide reporting strategy.
High Level BI Strategy Development Approach Workflow
If you're looking for a robust strategy development approach, the best method to ensure you end up with something that lets you implement your strategy (based on our decades of experience in BI strategy consulting) is by looking for answers to these 7 critical questions:
- What business decisions don’t we have sufficient information to make?
What Performance Metrics do we need to use to drive these business decisions. What are the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that the system must measure. - What is our vision for information accessibility and usage?
Who will need access to which information, in what time-frames, and on which devices. - What should the high-level BI roadmap of initiatives look like?
What are the dependencies between and among systems? - What metrics should we use to manage the BI implementation and fulfilment of BI business goals?
BI implementations are almost always done in a water-fall fashion. That means goal achievement will come with time. Are there benchmarks we need to set and achieve to indicate how the project is proceeding? - How should we design the processes, applications, and organization to fulfill our BI vision?
This can involve changes across the organization, as well as within business process configurations within SAP and other systems, including 3rd party platforms, such as marketplaces, in the case of bond traders. - What tool sets should we use to fulfill our BI vision?
SAP BW has evolved and will continue to evolve. There are also a wide variety of other tools included within the wider concept of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). Do we have enough insight to lay out a reasonable technical roadmap for the next five years?
Whichever tech stack you ultimately settle upon, it will need to have capabilities that include:
Predictive Analytics
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Data Mining
Support for Data Scientists
Corporate Data Dictionary Repository
Prescriptive Analytics
We'll delve a little deeper into the meaning, need and deployment options for each these a little further on. - What capabilities are required to make information available and useful to all stakeholders?
Not all, or even most users of SAP Business Intelligence will be at a desk on desktop device. Many will use only a mobile device, while on the road or on the factory floor. How will we deliver the information they need, when they need it, in the most useful form, that enables them to achieve their individual business objectives.
Business Buy-In
To achieve business buy-in, you will need to answer these SAP BW questions across these five lines of business (at a minimum) in order to develop a SAP BI roadmap:
- Sales
- Marketing
- Finance
- Operations / Supply Chain Management
- IT
In order to answer these questions and develop an effective business intelligence roadmap template, you will have to do a deep dive analysis within these organizational units, and as well, numerous cross-functional integration meetings will be required to align the BI strategy.
Information Needs May Vary Widely
If you are dealing with a holding company environment, you will find that the needs of the individual operating companies may be completely different, however, the holding company will have some top level financial metrics it is focused on, which all the operating companies will have to respond to.
Elements of a Successful BI Strategy
Aside from asking yourself the preceding questions, and getting the answers to them, it is very useful to dig a little deeper into certain elements of a data warehouse and how they come together in a BI Strategy.
Business Intelligence Competency Center
A Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) is a centralized team within an organization that is responsible for developing and executing the BI strategy. The BICC plays a crucial role in aligning the priorities of the CIO and the business owners and other key stakeholders, ensuring that the BI strategy is in line with the organization's goals and objectives. The BICC is responsible for identifying the business decisions that lack sufficient information, determining the performance metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) necessary for driving these decisions, and establishing a vision for information accessibility and usage. Additionally, the BICC develops a high-level roadmap of BI initiatives, manages the implementation process, and sets benchmarks to track the progress of the BI implementation. They also design the processes, applications, and organization necessary to fulfill the BI vision and select the appropriate toolsets to support the strategy. The BICC ensures that the information is made available and useful to all stakeholders, taking into account the diverse needs of users across different devices and locations. Overall, the BICC plays a critical role in developing and executing an effective BI strategy that enables the organization to achieve a competitive advantage in the market.
BICC and Data Governance
In addition to its role in developing and executing the BI strategy, the Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) also plays a crucial role in data governance, maintaining data integrity, and data management. The BICC ensures that the organization's data is accurate, consistent, and reliable by establishing and enforcing data quality standards and processes. They oversee the implementation of data governance frameworks, policies, and procedures to ensure that data is managed effectively throughout its lifecycle. The BICC collaborates with business owners and key stakeholders to identify data governance requirements and develop data management strategies that align with the organization's goals and objectives. They also monitor and evaluate data management practices, identify areas for improvement, and implement necessary changes to enhance data integrity and data management capabilities. The BICC's involvement in data governance is essential for ensuring that the organization's data is trustworthy and valuable for making data-driven, informed business decisions.
Business Intelligence Tools
A crucial component in developing and executing a successful Business Intelligence (BI) strategy is the Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC). The BICC acts as a centralized team within an organization that plays a vital role in evaluating and selecting the appropriate BI tools to support decision making. They ensure that business users have the necessary capabilities to perform data analysis and extract insights to support decision-making processes. There are different levels or types of decision making, and each requires specific tools or analysis. For operational decision making, tools such as dashboards and reports are typically used to provide real-time data and monitor key performance indicators. Tactical decision making involves tools like ad-hoc analysis and data visualization to analyze trends and patterns for informed decision making. Strategic decision making requires tools like predictive analytics and data mining to analyze historical data and forecast future trends. The BICC works closely with the business users to understand their decision-making needs and selects the appropriate tools to enable them to perform the required data analysis effectively. By ensuring that business users have access to the right tools and capabilities, the BICC empowers them to make data-driven decisions and support the organization's overall goals and objectives.
Big Data Analysis
Within the context of a BI Reporting Strategy, big data refers to the vast amount of structured and unstructured data that organizations collect from various sources. This data includes customer transactions, social media interactions, sensor data, and more. In order to ensure that big data supports advanced business analytics, a Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) plays a crucial role. For example, let's consider an airline. The airline collects massive amounts of data on customer bookings, flight schedules, maintenance records, and weather conditions. The BICC analyzes this big data to identify patterns and trends that can help the airline optimize flight schedules, improve customer service, and enhance operational efficiency. By leveraging advanced analytics techniques such as predictive modeling and machine learning, the BICC can provide insights that enable the airline to make data-driven decisions and gain a competitive advantage in the market. The BICC also ensures that the data is accessible to all stakeholders, regardless of their location or device, by leveraging the appropriate toolsets and technologies. The BICC plays a critical role in harnessing the power of big data to support advanced business analytics and drive organizational success.
BI Strategy Consulting
This will be especially important if you're developing your BI Reporting Strategy within the context of a Balanced Scorecard implementation which has its own specific requirements as well. Developing a SAP BI Reporting strategy can be a complex undertaking, requiring the inputs of experts with a background in both business intelligence and strategy management. That's why we encourage you to reach out to us for BI strategy management consulting support.
Ready to Start Building Your Own BI Strategy?
Now that you know the top level BI Strategy Report development requirements, you're ready to start building your own business intelligence strategy template without worrying about missing a critical reporting requirement.
BI Reporting Strategy Development Methodology Guidebook
You can get a free copy of the BI Reporting Strategy Development Methodology Guidebook, which will lead you to the development of a business intelligence strategy roadmap by clicking the button.
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