Solution to Case Study from November 18th #BIWisdom TweetChat

Hello Folks.

On November 18th, we had a lively discussion surrounding the case study provided by fellow #BIWisdom "tribe" member, Peter Evans.

Leading up to Peter revealing his solution, there were quite a few excellent suggestions for how one might handle a similar situation. Those details can be found in Twitter by searching for the hashtag #BIWisdom. We also archive all of the weekly TweetChats on our member site BusinessIntelligenceInsider.

Below is Peter's solution:

"My solution was to develop a use case and present this to the CEO and the team and then introduce my solution to the CIO as a tactical solution – giving them the opportunity to develop a strategic solution.

Because of my approach I was allowed access to an instance of an RDBMS server and could therefore build a complete application based on a the desktop database tool available connecting to an RDBMS Backend which was used to connect to the banks BI semantic layer along with their operational systems data. Using desktop database tool I built a load and transform system with the ability to import data via the desktop to be added to the end results. Reporting was done via automation of the desktop spreadsheet application via the desktop database tool and auto population of a dashboards and individual and group reports which were then uploaded via code to a web server application and also emailed to the recipients as pdf files."

Our thanks to Peter for the case study and the great discussion that ensued!

Best,

Howard

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Case Study for November 18th #BIWisdom TweetChat

Folks,

Peter Evans (@EvansBI) has provided the following case study for discussion this coming Friday at our #BIWisdom TweetChat.

Please review this case and come prepared to discuss!

Our thanks to Peter.

See you on Friday!

Best,

Howard
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Scenario:

Large International Retail Bank with Corporate BI System + Operational Systems + Externally generated survey reports and Operational Metrics. Having just been taken over by an external bank the Service Quality Team had a requirement to generate reports and a service quality scorecard to improve the business customer perception and profitability within the marketplace within a six month period.

You are hired specifically by the Business as opposed to the IT Department as there was already friction between the two teams due to past BI implantation failures – You are replacing a team of developers who had been brought in from the new banks IT Department for a three month period – and had left the unit with an Access database which had to be manually changed each month to the point of the non technical business users re-writing access queries and then running them to get each months reports – and the database was growing exponentially due to very poor data management.

Your problems are how to deal with an IT Team who thinks they are under threat not just from you but also the IT Department of the incoming bank. The Business unit employees were also very skeptical as they were made up of both analysts and managers and thought that if the process is automated they could lose their jobs, and finally since you are working for the business you have very little access to any IT infrastructure to make it all work.

As a BI Consultant/Developer what would be your approach.

Hey, I thought this blog was about BI and EPM!

Okay. I know that I haven't written about BI and EPM very much. Sorry about that. But I have some good reasons.

Most notably, I've been busy since the beginning of the year writing my second book - on enterprise performance. It'll be published by John Wiley & Sons at the end of 2009. The book focuses on a number of very in-depth case studies with some extremely interesting and innovative organizations. For me, it's been a great journey and an education. I've learned quite a bit about some key industries: health care, hospitality, manufacturing and TV and radio. I've also been exposed to some of very well run organizations, with superior leadership, focus and execution. So, even in these dark times, there are organizations that continue to thrive. My hope is that, when the book is published, other organizations - large and small - will be able to apply many of its principles - and improve their own performance.

More to come...

Best,

Howard

Check out my website for details on where I'll be speaking, presentation abstracts, articles, my book and more!