BI STRATEGY FRAMEWORK
Overview Organizations have been investing and building their information infrastructure and thereby accounting to massive amount of data. Now with the advent of Smart Phones, Social Media, RFID, NFT, IOT and other technologies, the amount, variety and frequency of data that is being captured has grown in gamut propositions. There is new found sense of Deja vu of the massive Data not actually aiding into insightful business decision. It is not about massive data alone, it is also about departmentalization of data and tools that has resulted in silos of information. This is causing difficulty in reconciliation, complex to comprehend, and limited in their ability to provide the needed insight. Outside-In perspective In SMEs, executives and business users often only have a very limited, static view of BI that is a set of reports that are produced from the data warehouse by the BI team. They are often not aware of the information hidden in the data warehouse and their data warehouses do not accommodate internal analog data. At we have defined the BI maturity of a company in 4 steps and they are governed by 4 A s namely Aware, Analyze, Adept and Avant-garde which are the Information maturity levels. Most organizations today find themselves at the Strategic level where they have BI giving those actionable insights into data. However, to sustain and grow in the long run becomes a challenge. The companies often do not know how to transition from Strategic to Visionary state. Some companies are not even aware of new trends and they tend to lag behind their competitors in terms of implementing the same. In today s new age decision making, there is a lot of 3rd party information, supplier, vendors, government data, online data, economic trends, analyst trends, surveys, industry body sponsored reports that companies try to analyze to derive insights. High Aiding better business decisions Low Fundamental Aware Spreadsheets and SQL Queries Manual retrieval & Reconciliation issues Long Processing time & lack of adaptability to change quickly Person dependent Tactical Analyze Improved BI adoption Departmentalized BI adoption No Strategic BI vision Reactive reporting and basic Dashboards Internal IT/MIS teams need external help to meet the ever changing & growing business requirements for cutting edge technology support for better insights. The other manifold challenge is related to leveraging the existing investments in terms of Hardware, Software & Applications. Utilizing new features while assuring existing baseline functionality makes such re-architecture a fairly complex task for internal IT teams to achieve. In general, migration and upgrade is governed by rearchitecture incorporating performance optimization and business requirement pipeline. The other challenge is about who owns the data and governing the data in terms of quality; ownership becomes critical as the Software applications grow beyond manageable propositions. Adept Strategic Business Outcome based BI Enterprise Data Warehouse Information Management Maturity SvoC & Master data Dashboards/Reports & Alerts Prediction & Forecasting, What-if analysis Avant-garde Visionary Integration with Semi/Un Structured data Real time decisions Enable Outcome based decision Statistical Analytics & Model (Prescriptive Analytics) High
With increasing competition, the time to market for products has become shorter. Higher demand for more integrated and timelier reporting of Sales, Customer information across brand, Channel and market has become the norm of the day. There are many questions that departments have to answer for various stakeholders. How do I increase my Customer sentiment and intern reduce my churn? Different definitions used across the business Reliance on Excel and manual processes to produce data What is the overall status of the company? Are there any unknown facts that are likely to be causing an issue? Are we using the right tools to stay competitive in the market place? Simple KPI s for real-time integration and streaming analytics requires technical impact. With massive amount of data and silos of knowledge, deriving insights at an organization level becomes a tough task. Every organization tries to find the right balance between Business Process, Tool & Data. Unified BI solutions Collaboration between departments Reduction in BI shelf ware Leverage existing solutions Reduce Operational Cost and Improve ROI How do we realize the ROI for the tools invested? How to derive insight from Unstructured data? Data does not reconcile. How good is my data? No real-time insights from the dashboard? Cost Optimization Data Quality Consolidation Integration Tools Consolidation Optimization Adoption Optimal Balance Performance Improvement Process BICC Governance Re-engineering For any organization to implement enterprise-wide BI properly and cost-effectively, it needs to follow a BI strategy. The strategy documents the long-term plan of choices to achieve its goals, taking the anticipated environment into account. It covers how to make effective use of BI technology and best practices to improve BI implementation, in order to support the business strategy and goals and to provide the required information for decision-makers a tall levels of the organization.
Framework The relative measure of value of the respective BI initiatives comes from actual usage statistics: the number of users, their positions and actual information usage (number of accesses, amount of data reported, and number of reports actually used and how frequently). On the BI and analytics journey, it is important to define an overarching strategy that can help deliver BI capabilities that align and support the implementation of the business decisions. The BI Strategy Framework addresses infrastructure for the whole data warehouse environment, as well as the tool sets for data integration and ETL, data discovery, reporting, dashboards and various types of analytics, data quality & metadata management, and more. The BI Strategy in an Organization evolves as BI matures over a period of time. The Framework will help organizations in defining their BI Roadmap and their implementation timelines, to accomplish Best Practices and Guiding Principles based Information Model that can enable current and future business models The Right Way Forward BI Strategy. teams ensure well planned execution of reverse knowledge transition to client IT teams for ongoing support. Data Governance Integration for source systems Strong Sponsor Data Capture & Storage Current IM & Gaps Key Considerations Data Information & Accuracy Data Model & KPI s Definitions Alignment to Corporate Strategy BI adoption & usage Software & Hardware utilization
The framework proposes to use the following 4 step approach to define a BI road map that would ensure that information is accessible and consumable by the business. This framework has can be scalable in case of critical success factors not met, by reverse engineering the required artefacts required for defining a roadmap. Listen Study Identify Define Data Quality, Data Governance & Change Management Client Project Sponsor Client Project Sponsor Client Business & IT teams Client Business & IT teams Client Business & IT teams 1.0 Workshop Business & IT Workshop 1.1 Business Overview 1.2 IT Overview Current Architecture overview by the business on existing systems & reports Deliverables 2.0 Study Business Process 2.1 Study the data 2.2 Study the Reports/ Dashboard/ Analytical models 2.3 Evaluate the tool Utilization Understand system / technology platform Understand Integration points, channels, reporting landscape & Data quality 3.1 Identify Gaps 3.2 Best Practice mapping Evaluate the Current State Process & Systems against the Desired State Map the current state against Best Practices 4.1 Define Roadmap 4.2 Benefits & ROI Assess the value opportunities to address gaps Prioritize the opportunities Define a BI roadmap Check Check Final Presentation Data Strategy and BI Roadmap Benefits, Governance & Data Strategy, Tool & Report Optimization, Implementation timeline and approx. cost Business Process Re-engineering Benefits: Detailed BI roadmap for stakeholder buy-in and to enable quick business value and to make better informed decisions Focus on Initiatives that drive greater business value Provide Architecture decisions that enable analytical capabilities and scalable to adapt newer technologies Leveraging existing infrastructure to determine the scalability and performance against real-world usage scenarios and loads Evaluating and validating the right tool selection for quicker decision and ROI Deliverables: Current assessment, Challenges and Gaps Clear road map for short and longer term tasks to be undertaken by Client in implementing the strategy; which may include governance & policies, systems and processes, support organization. Resource roles and responsibilities Risks & Assumptions Process Definition Methodology Tool Rationalization/Recommendations and Benefits Existing BI reports & Dashboard inventory and Rationalization plan Multi year roadmap with clear demarcation of short and long term goals & Objectives Information Governance Framework Covering Implementation methodology, Data Quality, Master Data, Common Meta data Presentation of findings and sign-off
Why Our Technology Strategy & Architecture practice comprising of architect from Big 5 and Tier 1 consulting firms have an average 14 years industry experience, possesses the depth of talent, breadth of experience and knowledge of current and emerging technology to assist CIOs innovatively embrace change while maintaining overall operational stability and security This spectrum of technology skills enables us to deliver a breadth of consulting services including BI roadmap and strategy development, Infrastructure planning and consolidation, innovative technology solution development, business and technology architecture planning and design. We act as an extended arm of the customer to evaluate, audit & review 3rd party BI strategy. Critical Success factors: Governance Model A formal Governance process needs to be instituted for the project.the Governance Model would include Executive Sponsorship, Executive Coordinator/Owner, Business Participation Council/Team This governance model will ensure participation from business users to enable successful engagement Client to identify and make available the key stakeholder/subject matter experts for clarifications, providing inputs and sign-off during the workshop The executive team representatives who will champion the initiative, help define the business alignment strategy through prioritization, and create the performance management culture Business Participation Participation and time commitment from functional teams for understanding to-be processes, as-is systems and data for legacy data loads, usage pattern etc. is crucial to building a business focused BI Strategy IT Participation Client IT team participation is crucial to building a comprehensive strategy Access to the required applications to carry out study, analysis and validation activities All necessary documents, KPIs, metrics, manuals, etc. relevant to the success of this project to the team Operational System implementation issues & delays Ensure that the infrastructure is available to the team and major downtime/outage will impact the timeline of this project All application source systems should be up and running during the course of this engagement Our Consulting services include: BI Vision and Roadmap Solution Architecture Recommendation Use Case Identification & Big Data Adoption Data Profiling & Quality Enterprise Data Architecture Traditional & New Age Some Reference: BI Consulting Metadata Management Performance Optimization Report/Dashboard Rationalization Architectural Consulting System Architecture Re-Engineering Proof of Concepts (PoC) Proof of Value(PoV) Migration / Upgrade Performance Optimization SVoC & Master data Solution Management & Governance Consulting Information(Data) Governance Strategies Standards, Best Practices Building CoE/BICC Agile Consulting Asset Inventory and Enterprise Portfolio Rationalization BI & Data Governance Strategy for a leading Hospitality chain based out of Canada Single View of Customer strategy for Leading Retail chain in South Africa& UK BI Application health check for Multi National bank based out of Middle east Product / Tool Evaluation & Recommendation BIDW implementation feasibility with tool recommendation and Technical approach for a leading transportation company from Hong Kong Integrated BI Roadmap and strategy for a South African retailer and Financial services
Author Kishan Venkat Narasiah, Consulting Lead DWBI & Analytics, 14 years of Industry Experience, currently working in the capacity of Senior Technical Architect level - Advising clients on BI road map, Information Strategy, Value realization, Data Governance as well as managing and delivering DWBI projects. Perform advisory role on complex Business Intelligence projects and act as subject matter expert in defining requirements of most complex business initiatives. Co-Author Viros Sharma, Vice President & Global Practice Head DWBI & Analytics, More than 20 Years in the DW/BI Consulting and Practice-Building space. Worked for Multinational IT companies like Bearing Point and igate in India and USA. AMP from IIMB. Double Masters in Mathematics and Computer Applications About, a fully owned subsidiary of USD 7 billion ITC Ltd, provides IT services and solutions to leading global customers. The company has carved a niche for itself by addressing customer challenges through innovative IT solutions. is focused on servicing the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services & Insurance), CPG&R (Consumer Packaged Goods & Retail), Life Sciences, Manufacturing & Engineering Services, THT (Travel, Hospitality and Transportation) and Media & Entertainment industries. For more information, please visit http://www.itcinfotech.com Or write to: contact.us@itcinfotech.com