Business Intelligence competency centers have not enjoyed even close to the same hype and acceptance as BI in general, meaning enterprises are missing out on some advanced data and business strategy opportunities, according to Gartner Research expert John Haggerty Justin Kern Information Management – 1 Aug 2012
Business Intelligence should have not only a tactical impact, but a strategic one too. This is easier said than done because achieving a strategic impact in large organizations requires the leaders of the BI initiative to be dedicated and drive for its success. To foster this leadership, the Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) was born, providing a more holistic approach to business intelligence. BICC encompasses more than just technology to include the organization’s overall information strategy.
One of the key elements the BICC must have to ensure success is a business process leader who, along with the data management leader and the business intelligence leader, forms the core of the BICC management group. The business process leader is responsible for defining process challenges within the BI implementation. BI is a process, not just a software product; processes can be changed, measured and documented. This makes them repeatable and adaptable to changing business requirements. The key to a successful process is people. Organizations that marry their human capital, culture, knowledge processes and infrastructure by creating a fluid and functional BICC are best prepared and poised to meet the continuously changing demands of their customers while maximizing corporate potential.
The BICC is formed around a number of axes:
- Business needs
- Organization and processes
- Tools and applications
- Data integration and management
The success to any BICC implementation is not to treat it as a project, but as a process. Once in place, the BICC should stay and be expanded and refined throughout its life. As business requirements change, there is a constant need for more advanced or different types of intelligence. The “intelligent company” that is accustomed to fact-based decision making will better usef information in more and more of its business processes.
In a 2003 report for Gartner, Kevin Strange and Bill Hostman (BI Competency Center is Core to BI Success AV-20-5294 Dated 22 July 2003) postulated that BI success within any company depends on the formation, organization and staffing of the BICC. Yet many organizations have struggled with their BICC implementations as identified by Haggerty in Kern’s Report
Whether this struggle is due to a lack of skills, understanding or commitment, the BICC still ranks as the No. 1 priority for CIOs. But the arrangement of processes and management of the output have not taken hold despite this stated interest. The problem most organizations face is that best practices and implementation of a BICC take time.
With that said, those organizations that put in the time will be rewarded, as Chris Carney from HP recently stated in an interview by Linda L Briggs for TDWI – 7 Feb 2012 because the BICC offers so many benefits that it’s hard to state just a few. Nevertheless, the time required is a concern to the business management, especially at the CFO level and above.
CFOs want to ensure that all business processes are being utilized in productive and cost-effective manners. In this fast-paced economy with margins cut to the bone, companies cannot always wait three months or more for the BICC to get up and running to provide BI on operational processes. This may result in business users looking for the ability to gain answers or Business Intelligence Right Now (BIRN), which leads to the proliferation within the business community of discovery tools and Excel spreadmarts.
CIOs, meanwhile, must maintain their commitment and support for the BICC and its obvious benefits around delivery of quality information and governance of the data supplies. Additionally, they should find a means to provide the business teams with access to the data in a way that maintains this security but allows flexibility to choose how business users integrate their data as well as visualize and discover trends and patterns. This is the recipe for a fully reenergized approach to enterprise BI.