Government Business Intelligence (BI): Solving Your Top 5 Reporting Challenges

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1 Government Business Intelligence (BI): Solving Your Top 5 Reporting Challenges Creating One Version of the Truth Enabling Information Self-Service Creating Meaningful Data Rollups for Users Effortlessly Accommodate Changes to the Agency Consolidating Multiple Systems Across the Enterprise The objective of this brief is to provide government and IT executives, managers, and staff with insight into how business intelligence (BI) principles and technologies can help them address five common issues that tend to prevent agencies from using information to achieve greater breakthroughs in performance.

2 The Information Continuum The benefits of BI are easier to articulate when referring to an information continuum. At the beginning of the continuum, agencies use native report writers to harness information from transactional systems that generate massive amounts of detailed data for various business functions budgeting, procurement and human resources to mention a few. For example, budget users might utilize transactional reports during the end of the quarter to gain an accurate understanding of their changing financial status as adjustments are being made on an hourly basis. Similarly, a procurement manager might rely on transactional reports to cut costs by understanding the timing of payments to vendors and if those vendors are pricing their products uniformly across the organization. While this approach provides agencies with useful snapshots of information, it does not ensure that information conforms to the same standards, integrates across disparate data systems, accommodates changing business rules or is easily accessible and personalized for self-service. To maximize the value of their information, agencies need to be able to extract the right insight at the right time, draw conclusions that are reliable and take action that is necessary to achieve the performance breakthroughs they desire. Business Intelligence, which lies on the other end of the continuum, allows agencies to do just that. In general, BI technologies do not limit users to simply viewing reports. Through intuitive interfaces, they actually allow users to interact with reports and underlying data, creating alignment with an agency s mission as shown in the Performance Improvement Pyramid below. Set Goals Translate Goals to Performance Metrics Performance Metrics Drive Reporting Requirements Desired Performance Views Drive Data Capture The Performance Improvement Pyramid ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE & REPORTING DATA WAREHOUSING Fulfill Organizational Objectives Continuously Monitor Activity Around Actual Performance to Goal Analyze Data to Understand Areas of Performance Improvement Data Captured Around Day to Day Activity Agency goals drive technology requirements around Data Warehousing, BI & Reporting, Knowledge Management and Performance Management. These systems allow departments to share information efficiently, improve processes, and improve decision making. Similarly, executives and managers are able to better manage business performance by having insight into daily processes. In particular, BI takes organizations of all sizes and across all levels of government to the next stage by addressing the following five issues: 1 Creating one version of the truth when it comes to the definition and interpretation of core business metrics; 2 Providing information self-service to end users around analytics; 3 Displaying meaningful data rollups for users, so reports are relevant to their roles and responsibilities within the organization; 4 Building a system that easily accommodates changes in the agency, so existing reports do not need to be rebuilt every time the organization changes; 5 Serving as a consolidation point for multiple systems across the enterprise, allowing an integrated analysis of organizational functions and processes rather than a narrower view. Challenge #1: Creating One Version of the Truth What is the definition of Total Costs? Does it mean the same thing as Total Expenditures? Are returns and discounts included in this figure? These are some of the questions that arise when multiple interpretations and definitions of business metrics exist. A budget person might define Total Costs differently than a program manager. Each interpretation may be valid given the perspective of the person asking the question. But then both must understand the difference between one definition of Total Costs and the other. Given the complexities of most organizations, this often is not the case. Instead, multiple definitions for the same business metric exist and often lead to miscommunication between departments and other stakeholders. When offices do not understand each other, they may even drive the agency to make the wrong decision. As an agency takes on strategic initiatives at a headquarters level, such as budgeting and planning, it is critical to have a single agency-approved definition of the metrics that define their performance. 2

3 Business Intelligence provides a solution to this problem by standardizing a set of approved business metrics. Metrics across the organization are defined, given a unique name and published. Vague names such as Total Costs may no longer be used. Instead, more specific terms such as Net Costs and Gross Service Costs are created. When everyone in the organization interprets the value of a metric the same way, then the organization has achieved one version of the truth. While many clients agree that one version of the truth is an important goal that needs to be achieved, they do not understand how their organizations can get there. Qlarion helps clients establish one version of the truth by holding workshops focused on identifying key metrics, seeking to understand differences in the interpretations of these metrics across the agency and standardizing each metric s definition. Naming conventions can also accommodate metrics that require multiple definitions. It is crucial to have key business stakeholders across offices involved in this process, as they will ultimately determine buyin and acceptance. Challenge #2: Enabling Information Self-Service How do end users receive reports? Are reports distributed after each financial close, printed on paper and then mailed? How are new reporting requests fulfilled? When faced with key business decisions, are most agencies satisfied with the quality of information available? Many organizational users are frustrated with the lack of access they have to their data assets. They recognize the value of capturing information about their performance relative to their established metrics and the insight that it potentially provides. However, many organizations are challenged with getting the right information to the right users at the right time. Because reports are based on historical data and are inefficiently executed and distributed, decision-making is often reactionary. Being able to detect a problem, or being alerted to one before it happens, would instead allow decision makers to make proactive decisions, eliminating the need to take later corrective actions. Due to different stakeholders reporting needs, numerous IT organizations also struggle with the backlog of new reporting requests from the users. Many transactional report writers require significant manual effort and programming experience to create new reports or modify existing ones that reflect changes in the agency s business. Business Intelligence solves these challenges by providing a complete self-service model for all end users around report access and data manipulation. Users can execute online reports on an as-needed basis and even interact with the data, replicating train-of-thought analysis. If a report requires further investigation, users can drill up, down or across the data with a few mouse clicks to identify the root cause of a variance or trend. Additionally, they can create new reports based on a catalogue of published metrics that are available in BI. Providing the agency s users with access and accountability around reporting frees up IT resources to focus on more compelling tasks that better leverage their skill sets. Qlarion addresses this reporting challenge by conducting interviews and workshops that map business goals with their associated data requirements at the beginning of a BI implementation. Additionally, Qlarion seeks to understand when and how the business needs information delivered to them. This might include leveraging a proactive notification as part of an exception alert when a certain threshold has been surpassed. Or, it might simply mean building an as of date prompt that allows users to select the exact date they want the report to be run. By working with clients upfront to identify what report display and delivery methods are most effective for them, Qlarion creates an effective information dissemination system that provides users with relevant insight when they need it. 3

4 Challenge #3: Creating Meaningful Data Rollups for Users Are reports presented at the right level of detail based on the end user s role and responsibility within the organization? Government agencies typically face one of three common reporting challenges. First, they often publish reports that are hundreds of pages long, or they produce ten versions of one report for multiple offices, divisions or regions. These reports become essentially unusable because of their sheer size and irrelevance to other parts of the business. Second, managers frequently find that the data presented in their reports are too clerical, providing such low levels of detail or analysis that no compelling conclusions can be made. Finally, some reports present consolidated data at too high a level to provide meaningful context around key organizational drivers. Highlevel static reports also prevent users from drilling down into a lower level of detail to determine contributing factors. With BI, data is stored at the lowest level of detail and can be rolled up or across various hierarchies. When implementing a BI solution, Qlarion works with clients to determine the ideal presentation of analytical content for each end user. For example, one budgetary report may have a number of views. Executive leadership may want to see results at a consolidated level, presented as a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) or scorecards. Program managers might instead want an office-level view, while regional directors require a regional view. Qlarion understands each user s needs and works with the client to embed them into the BI system. Challenge #4: Effortlessly Accommodate Changes to the Agency Do changes in the agency trickle through to reports automatically? Agencies are constantly undergoing change whether that entails employee turnover, adding a new program or acquiring a new set of responsibilities. It is important to make sure that an organization s data and BI system reflect the dynamic nature of the agency. Many transactional reports require recoding to accommodate changes in an organization s business. This often necessitates assistance from IT or an advanced report developer who can modify existing reports. If there are a large number of reports within the organization, the level of effort required to reflect modifications to the business model can be significant. Business Intelligence utilizes a data warehouse to organize data based on the fundamental structure of an organization s business. Provided changes are updated in the initial data source, BI reporting adjust based on the new business model. For example, if a new regional office has been established and the organization s human resources tool reflects this change, the new office will automatically become part of the BI analysis without modifying existing reports. (Note: This assumes that an organization s BI warehouse brings in data from the HR system.) Because BI heavily depends on the data relationships established within the warehouse, it is essential that the warehouse s most basic structure correctly reflect the business and its reporting requirements. During every BI implementation, Qlarion works with clients to understand what the base structure should be, validate the structure with key agency stakeholders and incorporate it into the data model. When a business change occurs, the change will automatically transpire in BI as long as the warehouse model is robust and accurate. Challenge #5: Consolidating Multiple Systems across the Enterprise Do reports incorporate data from multiple sources and organizational units? If so, how are these reports developed? Does it require a manual effort? There is never just one system that encompasses all business processes across an organization. Multiple systems will capture valuable information across functional departments or entities and separate reporting efforts will exist within each one. But there is generally no automated, integrated process that ties all of this data together to present a consolidated view of performance. Consolidated reporting often entails a manual effort, usually requiring an analyst to download data from these multiple systems into a spreadsheet and manipulate it to provide an integrated view of the organization. 4

5 Business Intelligence leverages a data warehouse that many organizations use as a point of integration for all disparate systems. Qlarion recommends that clients use their reporting requirements as a driver to build out a phased approach to a broader information integration strategy. Based on what information the agency requires, Qlarion helps clients identify where that information resides. Once all data dependencies have been isolated, data is loaded into the BI warehouse to use as a foundation for analysis. By bringing the data generated from disparate systems together in a data warehouse and then leveraging a BI tool to provide the analytical functionality that end users need, organizations move up along the information continuum and increase the business impact of their systems. Business Intelligence A Means to an End Dealing with these five issues can be so overwhelming and frustrating for agencies that they find it challenging to keep the big picture in focus and difficult to mobilize resources on BI initiatives that might seem independent of their problems. However, it is important for agencies to take the time to understand how they can use BI to drive the improvements they are seeking and solve the problems they are facing. Similarly, many organizations feel as if they are not ready to deploy BI because they need to resolve data quality issues that are a result of inconsistent organizational processes across offices. However, BI shines a spotlight on those areas where an uncoordinated and non-standardized approach around data capture results in data integrity issues. Qlarion helps customers identify the source of their data quality problems and enforce corrective measures and standardized business processes in order to build the solid data foundation that a robust BI system requires. Qlarion helps organizations use BI to focus on the key aspects of their business people, processes and technologies to solve the key problems that tend to limit an organization s performance. BI is a means to the ultimate end on the business continuum ensuring the right people have the right insight at the right time to enable the organization to achieve the breakthroughs in performance it needs to fulfill its corporate vision. About Qlarion Qlarion improves mission performance by enabling transparency and empowering government decision-makers to act on timely, consumable information. Qlarion is an SBA certified small business that provides strategic performance management and business intelligence solutions in the federal marketplace. The team has engaged in highly visible projects at the Department of Education, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the legislative branch of the federal government. Qlarion is a GSA schedule holder, GS-35F-0117V. For more information, please visit our Website at or our blog at governmentbi.qlarion.com Copyright 2011 Qlarion, Inc. All Rights Reserved.