Once upon a time Business intelligence was the domain of IT teams and data analysts. IT was like the gatekeeper of analytics, with departments having to rely on them to prepare the data and churn out reports for their BI projects.
Not anymore. Over the past few years, as technology has evolved, businesses have had a choice of solutions offering analytics and visualization capabilities that open up Business Intelligence to everyone.
It’s a good thing, right? All of a sudden, businesses can get insights from previously unexplored data sources and forgotten branches of the Business are discovering new insights that could change the strategic direction of the company, helping you gain competitive advantage.
Now, an organization will have different types of Business Intelligence users, which brings both benefits and challenges. One of the biggest challenges is getting a handle on who’s accessing and using the data that’s available.
Before data spirals out of control, let’s take a look at some of those business intelligence users who’ll be working with your precious business data.
The whole point of bringing business intelligence to the masses is to embed BI across entire organizations, making data a part of how they conduct their business and streamline operations, and to bring agility to the whole process.
One of the biggest bonuses of handing responsibility for data reporting over to individual business intelligence users is that it enables on-demand reporting, with ad-hoc reports allowing users to get more specific insights that answer a specific query.
With more power given to business users, there’s the risk of IT teams taking their eye off the ball. While business intelligence users no longer need the technical skills that they used to, IT are needed more than ever, and there’s even greater need for data governance to ensure the success of BI.
Gartner predicted that, in 2017, less than 40% of Self-Service Business Intelligence initiatives would be governed sufficiently to prevent inconsistencies that adversely affect the business. And BARC said something similar in the recent BI-Survey when it recommended a Data and Tool Governance framework, plus closer alignment between IT, the business, and business intelligence users to prevent the total loss of control over data.
Actually, benefits of business intelligence are being felt across departments, in all industries. Data has become central to all roles, although product and market-driven results are more noticeable when you’re looking at the bottom line.
For instance, analytics can guide the sales cycle and help marketing teams target leads. In HR, business intelligence comes into its own, helping businesses manage one of their important assets: people. HR holds a gold mine of information that can help with compensation planning, or link people to financial performance, for example.
