Free guide to delivering business intelligence

Your organisation has probably invested in systems to support your business. Systems to process sales, deliver customer service and market products and services. But, if they don't deliver the information needed, it's difficult to measure business performance.

This guide is designed to help you deliver business intelligence.

Systems and business processes

It may seem obvious, but before getting embroiled in data, it is essential to understand how a business operates:

• What does your organisation do?
• What are the benefits to your customers?
• How do you make money?

Most organisations have more than one system that contains customer information; from departmental databases and spreadsheets, through to websites and sales systems. Identify the possible sources of data:

Tele-sales, On-line sales, Customer service, Website contacts, e-News letter registrations, Departmental databases, Spreadsheets, Marketing communications and campaigns, Competitive intelligence, Publicly available information, Organisation and contact lists, Market research, External lists and demographics, Product management, Content management systems for off-line and on-line publications, Supply chain and logistics

• How does each system support the business?
• How do these systems interact?
• What rules could be applied to link systems data?

Audit and appraise your organisations data

Review each source, auditing its content to establish is currency and value. The goal is to understand what each set of data means and how together it provides a complete picture of your business:

• How robust is the data? What business rules were applied at data entry?
• Focusing on customer related data - what is the meaning of the tables and fields?
• Are fields consistently populated and where not, which have missing values?
• Are values standardised and or are there free text entries?

Against each data source, highlight any issues concerning data quality or integrity that may affect the use of the data for marketing or analytical purposes.

Considerations before implementation

Before implementing Business Intelligence consider how it would work in your organisation:

• Who would use the information?
• What would they be using it for?
• Will it fit into my current systems investment?
• How much does it cost and how quickly will I receive a return?

Using these considerations, develop requirements to ensure you pick the right solution.

Business intelligence technology

There are quite a few technology vendors who sell Business Intelligence software. Some have recently been acquired by the biggest suppliers: SAS, Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft.

NB. If you have Microsoft systems, you probably have access to the technology!

Taking action

We have found that it is essential to have a business sponsor for all our projects. Projects led by IT, how ever well meaning, will be fraught with issues. You need cooperation across the business to achieve the greatest success.

These steps can make all the difference to the projects success.

Would you like some help with your project? If that's a yes, we are just a email or phone call away (contact details top right of this page).

Wishing you success in your project.