Week 14 Implementing Enterprise Business Intelligence Systems

Implementing a BI system is not easy. Before any implementation, organization must first identify what do they want to achieve. Understand what is important for the organization together with data sources and analytical capabilities that the organization have. Finally determine the gap between current resources and the goals that the organization has for BI

BI Program Management Office (BI PMO) has to be created.

• BI POM will establish project priorities and obtain funding for projects
• Oversee the enforcement of standards, policies and procedures as well as the development of data models and ETL code.
• Identify and create the overarching BI architecture
• Determine how each project will further develop or fit into the existing architecture

The corporate information factory shows the information flow direction inside an organization. Change in management will be one of the cause for the failure of implementing BI system.

Without data quality, reporting and analytical processes will be unreliable and dangerous for decision making

Managing data quality:

• Define what data quality means to your company
• Educate key stakeholders on:
• Data quality theories
• Case studies from other organisations
• Specific problems with your company’s data
• Obtain key stakeholders’ support

Decide how to evaluate and prioritise data quality problems
Decide how to establish and maintain on-going data quality programs

A organization can either outsource their Business Intelligence Competency Center(BICC) or set up one BICC team in house. According to SAS, a Business Intelligence Competency Center (BICC) is a cross-functional team with a permanent, formal organizational structure. It is owned and staffed by the client and has defined tasks, roles, responsibilities and processes for supporting and promoting the effective use of business intelligence and performance management across the organization.

Your BICC might have some of these functional areas:

• BI Program Management Office: : Defines and monitors implementation of the BI strategy. Responsible for consistent BI deployment, standards, technology assessments, knowledge management, best practices and business analytics expertise.
• Data Stewardship: Data definition, ownership and quality, metadata management, data standards.
• Vendor Management: Vendor evaluation, relationship management, user licenses.
• Information Management: Coordination with the data warehouse team to integrate operational data into the BI environment.
• Information Delivery: Working with the business community to promote proper use of information, data mart design and utilization, analytical analysis, user training and support.

The success factor for BICC are to have representatives from both business and IT team. Strong support from management and reporting to CIO or COO.

BICC can be either a permanent structure or virtual team. A permanent structure will be a separate division, the advantage is that will be sharing of experience and knowledge.

A virtual team consisting of staff from different department or companies which require no internal reorganization or shifting of budget. But it lack of communication and alignment between members.
There are three different ways of funding a BICC. Listing it as a cost center. This is run the risks of an under appreciated center as it is not a revenue generating center.

The second method is Internal billing system. It charge users for help given on projects and analysis. The disadvantage of this method is that it can limit the use and growth of BICC.

The third method is to have a subscription-based billing model. It is very difficult to implement as it is very difficult to get agreement upfront. Estimating of usage will be difficult.

According to SAS, big organization are more favour towards the cost center funding where SMB is more like to use the Internal billing system.

Finally before ending for this week's lecture, I like to share this actricle with my friends. It contains a lot of information such as Benefits from having a BICC, Staff members in a BICC and Guidance for setting up a BICC.

Happy Learning
Cheers
Chenyuan