Business Intelligence and Three Myths
Business Intelligence is Growing
Business Intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds as with technology improvements, enabling combining and visualizing data easier than ever before. Business Intelligence is something that every company should and needs to engage with no matter the size or scope of your company.
Business Intelligence Myths
Business Intelligence is surrounded in myths, so let’s try to open up some of these myths for you today.
Business Intelligence is Complicated
Business Intelligence should be seen as a framework for agreeing on and delivering the data you need to make better decisions in your company. And it is just a random assortment of data, used correctly it's the stuff that tells you if you're meeting your targets and objectives. More importantly, Business Intelligence is also multi-layered: A good business intelligence strategy will not only tell you if you're meeting your goals, but how and why. Business Intelligence is about mapping data to your business needs to make better decisions.
Business Intelligence is Expensive
Like anything you undertake, actually implementing a Business Intelligence strategy is going to cost, nothing is free. Business Intelligence is not about expensive software more about the time to develop your business intelligence strategy, and then ongoing time to implement the strategy.
Business Intelligence is about helping you make better decisions, working smarter not harder. So if over time you're actually making better decisions, you should save a a lot of time over the long run by not implementing things that just don't work.
Business Intelligence is about Software
Business Intelligence is not generated from software; instead the software is the keeper of business intelligence. For business intelligence to work you need the following:
Data quality: For Business Intelligence to work, you need good data. It does come down to garbage in then garbage out. Nearly 80% of all data is unstructured, and most of the rest is input by humans, it's up to the people you work with to do it right.
Support: Business Intelligence is, by definition, iterative. As the needs and goals of your company change, so too will your Business Intelligence strategy. This will require an ongoing investment from the people in your company.
These are our myths on Business Intelligence, what are yours?