Dresner’s Point: Ready for the “2014ization” of Business Intelligence?

I don’t like making predictions, so rest assured this is not another of a myriad of predictions articles that hit the media annually. Instead, let’s kick start the year with some definite plans and aspirations of companies in the business intelligence sphere. A great place for an insightful, real-world view of BI trends is my weekly #BIWisdom tweetchats with BI customers, vendors and consultants.

What is your organization planning to try to achieve in 2014? When I recently asked the #BIWisdom tribe this question, their tweets made it immediately clear that their companies are gearing up for achieving even greater value from business intelligence than they have to date.

Plans Include:

• More mobile BI
• More BI demos with real-life applications
• Get more into mobile BI as it helps to reach the masses and get closer to “Information Democracy”
• Explore the sharing potential of BI and the power to integrate additional sources at any point in the BI stack
• BI methodology is big on our checklist for this year
• Get up to speed with some of the specialized tools in the BI stack; it’s hard to keep up with the toolsets released so far for data integration, data quality, data management and data security
• Migrating to current versions of BI software; for innovations in BI software you need the newest versions. Examples: user empowerment and the speed of getting answers (not just reports)
• There is a growing interest in data that tells stories; keep up with advances in storyboarding to package visual analytics that might fill some gaps in communication and collaboration
• Monitor rumblings about trend to shift data to secure storage outside the U.S. due to the NSA revelations
• Expand basic BI to more users (not just multi-page dashboards, but targeted BI); mobile BI will certainly drive the expansion
• Have BI super-users engage with others to expand the penetration of BI among users
• Increase use of self-service products to provide more value and increase adoption of BI tools

Aspirations:

• More predictive analytics to learn more about Big Data
• Expand more into embedded BI
• Do more with text analytics; there’s a lot to mine from text analysis

Location intelligence:

The group also tweeted about a new thrust in business intelligence functionality — location intelligence or location analytics. Will it have legs in 2014, I asked? Definitely, they responded.
One person tweeted: “I’m close to this topic and see activity and a lot of interest growing in this area.”
Another tweeted, “Through the use of location analytics organization can see new patterns in their data that graphs and charts don’t reveal.”

Mobile and location are intertwined — two sides of the same coin — so it should have legs this year. Here at Dresner Advisory Services we’ll publish a report on our first Wisdom of Crowds® Market Study on Location Intelligence in February 2014.

Bottom line:

The #BIWisdom tribe’s tweets aren’t mere hopes. These folks are not punching above their weight. They have experienced success with BI so far and are building on that success to mine for greater value.

Judging by their comments, we have new BI trends to monitor as we watch the “2014ization” of BI unfold. Which trends will rise to prominence?

I’d love to know what plans and aspirations your company has for 2014. Please post your comment.

Click Here to Purchase Your Copy of the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds ® Mobile Computing & Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study

Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.

Dresner’s Point: Why do Some BI Sprouts Lead to Failure?

Over the years of conducting our Wisdom of Crowds® Business Intelligence Market Study on various aspects of BI the percentage of respondents that report success with their BI initiatives increases each time. Yet there are still some that report failures.

Success begets even more success, of course. What enables an outcome of “mission accomplished” and what causes failures? This has been a topic of debates several times in our Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats.
Our market studies consistently reveal that key contributors to success are management commitment, organizational stability, focused implementation and requisite skills. So it follows that the opposite characteristics would lead to failure: lack of management commitment, unstable organization and lack of skills.

But my #BIWisdom tweetchat participants have expanded that picture with their real-world experiences as users, vendors and consultants. In our debates, they swept past the key characteristics and honed in on a central issue — How do organizations decide that a BI implementation failed?

Is the deciding factor that the company does poorly, or that the users are dissatisfied, or is it a combination of both factors? And what constitutes a “user” in this aspect; is it only users with decision authority? Is the deciding factor among end users the fact that vendors say the technology answers problems all on its own and thus there is not enough emphasis on process, training, briefings, change management? Is it the lack of a long-term vision and commitment, which then causes the BI solution to go stale and subsequently be perceived as a failure?

Failure is a relevant term; in some organizations the IT department may say the BI initiative is a success but end users say it’s a failure because they can’t use the tool.

A participant tweeted that evaluating whether or not a BI implementation fails should be like a doctor’s evaluation, checking for various symptoms to determine whether the implementation is “healthy.” From their own experiences, the #BIWisdom participants came up with a list of “symptoms” criteria for evaluating success or failure.

Someone tweeted that user adoption is the only symptom that counts. Someone else stated that it isn’t the only criterion, but it’s the most important one. Another participant disagreed, saying that it’s important that the users adopt a tool that delivers correct data and information.

Another tweeted that early adoption is critical. And someone else countered that an influential stakeholder’s adoption is the most critical factor, adding that “one negative C-level opinion is all it takes for failure.” One person stated that success requires “adoption from the C-suite to the shop floor.”

Several #BIWisdom folks pointed out that each department head in an organization might have different success criteria —ease of use, governance, integration, for example. And several opined that revenue and growth are the most important success criteria.

Another tweeted opinion is that success with BI analytics tools requires corresponding transformation of business processes.

And there was this bit of tweeted wisdom: “Failure is any BI deliverable that doesn’t result in a changed process or decisions. Otherwise, what was the point of the initiative?”

So the discussion shifted to context and actionability as well as measurement of success.
“But how can you measure ‘understanding?’” asked one of the group. “And what if you can’t prove you improved?” Another participant added that some business processes don’t lend themselves to measurement. So it’s “a bit like a scientist’s problem of mere observation impacting results of an experiment,” he added.
I think this tweet sums up the final opinions of the group: “It’s fair to say that evaluation of success or failure is a measurement of whether the BI initiative enabled change. After all, if it just proves your organization is perfect, the expense of evaluating the outcome isn’t justified.”

Bottom line: Of course failures also are learning experiences. But my experience and observation is that in successful organizations business intelligence is how people stay aligned with the mission and strategy.
Therefore, if BI is that crucial to an organization’s success, it begs the question: Does the BI industry do enough to ensure initial customer success with BI tools and solutions?

>> Click here to view our full catalog of Business Intelligence research products <<

Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.

Dresner’s Point: Involve Customers and Suppliers in Your BI Chain

August 15, 2013

Do you remember when you thought it was too risky to purchase something online? Remember when you held out for a while and didn’t immediately hop on board the bandwagon like others to enjoy the convenience of paying your bills via online banking? Or maybe you still haven’t taken those plunges. The same phenomenon is affecting some organizations’ entrée into cloud-delivered business intelligence. But others have injected a big dose of value creation into their BI activities by moving to the cloud.

In fact, one of the significant nuggets in our recent 2013 Wisdom of Crowds® Cloud Business Intelligence Market Study is that organizations targeting external users (customers and suppliers) are the biggest users of cloud BI. It makes sense because of the cloud’s scalability and elasticity —and the ability to isolate those users from internal systems..

Integrating end-to-end value chains is definitely valuable, from the perspectives of data source as well as delivery. Without involving customers and suppliers in the BI chain, you don’t get full value. In addition, delivering BI in the cloud (private or public) allows organizations to spend their resources on innovation as opposed to operations. The cloud’s elasticity and pay-as-you-grow pricing model makes it easier to budget and allocate resources.

So why are some organizations opting for traditional BI instead of tapping into the value of BI through the cloud? I wanted to take a deeper look at this from the perspectives of the tribe at my Friday #BIWisdom tweetchats. Their positions and insights span the horizon of buyers, vendors, and analysts, and they’re on the cusp of what’s happening in the business intelligence space.

On a recent Friday we plunged into a discussion about the nuances of adding customers and suppliers to the BI value chain. The tribe members’ real-world observations align with our survey findings around the top barriers to adopting cloud BI — security issues and loss of control.

It all comes down to trust.

The tribe tweeted that one of the points of moving BI to the cloud is to give some control to users. But that power shift can be significant, and not fully understanding the risks causes some uneasiness. Tweets pointed out that:

• “Internal users having control is one things, but external users (customers and suppliers) affecting control could present risks.”
• “By giving these external partners more control of what data/information they see via the cloud, they may bring their own agendas into your BI.”

“Where do you draw the line?” they asked.

When it comes to the barrier of security, several participants tweeted that in reality data is no more secure these days inside the organization than it is in a public cloud (think NSA). Nevertheless, perception is as important as reality. Most of them agreed with me that inadequate security is an easy crutch to lean on when there are other hidden agendas for not moving to the cloud.

I asked the tribe what needs to happen for cloud BI to earn more trust to overcome the control and security barriers. Policy changes? Education? New technology?

• A member suggested that executives might gain more trust if the cost drops to the point where that trust is bought. Another said trust can’t be bought, especially since the days of Enron.
• Someone else tweeted that big brands like Amazon help overcome the trust issue and cloud providers are bending over backwards these days to show security and compliance.
• One was of the opinion that “Trust with the cloud is only as good as the gap between now and the next news story on compromised or lost data. Even if you lose cloud data because of internal mistakes, people will still remember that it was in the cloud when it happened.”

My view: Trust takes time. After all, some people still won’t pay their bills online.

Bottom line: For some organizations, bringing customers and suppliers into their BI corral is a good starting point for moving BI to the cloud. And delivering greater value through cloud BI can be the proving ground that leads to larger acceptance within the organization.

Because of the trust issue, most organizations will opt for private cloud BI before moving across to public clouds. Organizations that don’t want to fully move BI to the cloud right away will find the right mix of on-premises and cloud that works best for them.

The cloud will continue to disrupt the business intelligence space just as it has in all other aspects of technology. And whether or not there is a trust issue, cloud BI will catch on just as e-commerce did when people realized they liked the benefits of shopping online.

Click Here to Purchase Your Copy of the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds ® CloudBI Market Study

Howard Dresner is president, founder and chief research officer at Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, an independent advisory firm. He is one of the foremost thought leaders in Business Intelligence and Performance Management, having coined the term “Business Intelligence” in 1989. He has published two books on the subject, The Performance Management Revolution — Business Results through Insight and Action, and Profiles in Performance — Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. He hosts a weekly tweet chat (#BIWisdom) on Twitter each Friday. Prior to Dresner Advisory Services, Howard served as chief strategy officer at Hyperion Solutions and was a research fellow at Gartner, where he led its Business Intelligence research practice for 13 years.

Video Preview of our Mobile BI Study

Hello Everyone!

The Findings and Analysis Report for our Mobile Business Intelligence Market Study is NOW COMPLETE!! The report will be first released to enterprise licensees on September 8th.

For all others, the study webinar will take place on Octber 25th at 12:00 PM ET. Webinar attendees will receive a complimentary copy of the study findings report immediately following the event!

Here's a short video preview of what you'll see on the 25th:



Please visit our Official Mobile BI Study Website at http://www.mobile-bi-study.com for more details and to register!

Best,

Howard

Gartner's Business Intelligence Conference

I’m just back from Gartner’s BI conference in Chicago and I feel energized. First of all, let me mention that I founded this very conference in 2003 and chaired it until I left Gartner in 2005. So, I was honored and delighted to be invited back to deliver a keynote on Thursday with “Mr. Balanced Scorecard” himself, Dr. David P. Norton, in addition to presenting at a “power breakfast” and a doing a book signing.

I was impressed with how the conference has grown since 2005. With over 1,200 attendees and more than 50 vendors on the show floor – it is the biggest vendor-neutral BI/EPM show in the world. When we started the conference in 2003, it was at the Sheraton in Chicago. After three years – and growing from 400 attendees to 800, it moved to the Hyatt. Now at 1,200 attendees, Gartner will be moving it to the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, in Maryland, for 2009.

Unlike when I was chairing the conference, I had plenty of time to talk to people and even attend some sessions. Here are some of the things that I observed:

Even though many of the sessions were designated “advanced sessions”, most attendees were first timers and were there to begin learning about business intelligence, data warehousing and performance management. This confirms my belief that, while vendors consolidate and make for a more mature supplier market, user adoption and penetration is still in its infancy. Absent a real BI strategy, these organizations are rife with the misuse of spreadsheets and other personal productivity tools. To cater to them, Gartner offered tutorials and even some workshops this year.

Eighty percent (or more) of the attendees came from IT departments. The rest (presumably) were business users. Gartner has been trying to encourage its traditional following to bring a user “buddy” with them by offering discounts. Having said this, much of the content was oriented towards IT, not business. Among the most popular sessions: data warehousing and master data management – i.e., the “plumbing of BI”.

Some of the attendees that I spoke with felt frustrated by their inability to take what they learned and change the status quo of their organizations. This is nothing new and underscores the fact that success with BI and EPM requires much more than architecture and technology. In fact, while it might be easier to buy yet-another-tool, it is often the wrong approach. Change requires vision and leadership at the highest levels of the organization. Those who have read my book, The Performance Management Revolution (John Wiley & Sons), know that I have focused predominately upon organization, culture, politics and method as the obstacles or enablers of “information democracy”.

Others attendees were sent with a real mandate to supply better information to management. Here I see the potential to change management’s perception of BI and EPM. However, shifting from a tactical request for better information to a performance-driven culture is fraught with risks and challenges. Working with Finance and establishing a competency center outside of IT can help. Gartner had at least two sessions on competency centers. The one I went to was extremely well attended. However, at my “power breakfast” I surveyed the audience and found that only a small minority of them had a competency center in place.

With some of the changing market dynamics, I was pleased to see sessions on “open source” BI and DW and software-as-a-service (SaaS). However, to my great surprise, when polled during the MQ Power Session, none of the attendees indicated that they were using any open source products for DW, DI or BI. A few seemed to be exploring SaaS. Perhaps those were the few business users, as most IT folk view SaaS as a problem. And, while the “mega vendors” (e.g., IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP) were often mentioned, I found no in-depth or critical discussion of their offerings, strategies or relative merits.

All-in-all, it was a great conference which was very well received by attendees and vendors alike. And, given the imperative by management to improve decision making and access to information, I suspect that 2009 will see continued strong demand – with the indoctrination of the next crop of “newbies” to DW, DI, BI and EPM.

And, don't forget to check out my website for details on articles, speaking engagements, presentation abstracts, my book and more!