Business Intelligence Roadmap: The Complete Project Lifecycle for Decision-Support Applications

Chapter Overview

This chapter covers the following topics:

  • Things to consider during a business case assessment

  • The importance of developing a business justification and a business strategy for BI decision-support initiatives

  • Business drivers and strategic business goals, rather than new technology, as the motivating forces behind every BI project

  • Business analysis issues such as defining the organization's information needs, identifying data sources, and analyzing the current and desired quality of data

  • The use of cost-benefit analyses to demonstrate how (and how soon) a return on investment (ROI) can be achieved

  • Risk assessment and the six major risk categories of technology, complexity, integration, organization, project team, and financial investment

  • Brief descriptions of the activities involved in business case assessment, the deliverables resulting from those activities, and the roles involved

  • The risks of not performing Step 1

Things to Consider

Access to Information

Where do we get the information we need for making decisions today?

What information do we already have? What additional information do we need?

Business Drivers and Sponsorship

What are the business drivers for an overall BI decision-support initiative?

What are the specific business drivers for this BI application?

Who could be a potential business sponsor?

Do we already have a business sponsor for this BI application?

Readiness Assessment

Are we ready for a BI decision-support environment?

Have we performed a readiness assessment?

What do we need to do to get ready? Buy hardware? Acquire tools? Establish standards? Hire more staff?

Risks

What are the risks of building a BI decision-support environment?

What are the risks of not building a BI decision-support environment?

Cost Justification

Is it worth building this BI application, or will it cost more than we can justify?

Do we know what all the BI project costs will be?

Will we have to buy new hardware? Upgrade our network? Buy new tools? Hire consultants ?

Return on Investment

How will we measure ROI? For example:

  • Will the BI application have an effect on our customer service?

  • Will it help us increase customer satisfaction?

  • Will it help us increase our revenue?

  • Will it help us make strategic decisions that will lead to increased profits?

  • Will it help us reduce our costs?

  • Can we expect to gain a bigger market share as a result of the BI application?

Although BI has captured the imagination of many organizations, the industry is still challenged to quantify benefits accurately, especially since an organization cannot buy a BI product off the shelf and expect it to provide a complete solution to the business needs. "Business intelligence," or intelligence about the business, is unique to every organization, as are the policies and business rules governing the organization's business practices. This uniqueness should be explored for competitive advantage. Buying an off-the-shelf product, which was not built around the unique features of an organization, reduces the likelihood for competitive advantage.

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