What is the ultimate promise of pervasive business intelligence?
Mark Flaherty (MF): Pervasive BI means that BI is being used to make both big and small decisions. Any decisions that contribute to the company’s performance are made based on facts and insights from data, so not just gut feel decision-making. It's really based on leveraging the data at hand. The result of pervasive BI should be that it helps a company reach new heights whether it in terms of financial performance, best-in-class customer service, or having the best products on hand when customers need it.
How do organizations know they have succeeded at making BI pervasive and how can that success be measured or quantified?
MF: I think the biggest indicator is that all workers, so executives as well as frontline workers, recognize that BI is mission critical. They couldn’t do their jobs effectively without business intelligence. And today, really, that recognition is quite low in most companies. Usually it's the knowledge workers or the power users who only consider business intelligence mission critical. So that’s kind of from a qualitative aspect. And typically most companies only measure their success by these qualitative aspects, so really user perception and executive level perception.
But there are some quantitative ways that companies can measure their success. Return on investment, of course, is one of the most preferred ways and yet, a very few companies do that. And I think it's because it's so difficult to do. You are trying to come up with a really precise number and precise benefits when really the inputs to calculating those benefits are very imprecise. So I think other things like just measuring how many users you have and how often these users rely on business intelligence to do their daily jobs is another way of measuring success.
Why is making BI pervasive such a challenge for organizations?
MF: It's an excellent question. One challenge is that companies that deploy BI very successfully are reluctant to share this with their competition. Some companies’ entire business model is really based on taking value out of the data that they collect. Their BI implementation amounts to trade secrets. I think another challenge for successful with business intelligence is that you have to have a high level of data quality. And from an organizational point of view, you have to have executive level support. The secret then lies in how to achieve that or how to get the executive level support. So I think – and the final aspect to this is that there are some secrets that I don’t think we have really talked about much in the industry or that really has given too much emphasis in terms of best practices.
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What is the difference between pervasive BI and self-service BI?
Pervasive BI and self-service BI are two approaches to business intelligence (BI) that aim to empower organizations with data-driven decision-making capabilities. While they share some similarities, they differ in their focus, scope, and the level of user involvement. Let's explore the key differences between pervasive BI and self-service BI:
- Focus:
- Pervasive BI: Pervasive BI focuses on making business intelligence capabilities available to all users within an organization, regardless of their technical expertise. It emphasizes the widespread adoption of BI tools and practices across all departments and levels of the organization.
- Self-Service BI: Self-service BI, on the other hand, prioritizes empowering individual users, typically business analysts or non-technical users, to access and analyze data on their own without heavy reliance on IT or data specialists. It aims to democratize data access and analysis, enabling users to generate insights and reports independently.
- Scope:
- Pervasive BI: Pervasive BI encompasses a broad organizational strategy that involves the integration of BI capabilities into various business processes and applications. It may involve the deployment of standardized BI tools and dashboards across the organization, as well as the implementation of data governance policies to ensure data consistency and accuracy.
- Self-Service BI: Self-service BI typically focuses on providing users with user-friendly tools and interfaces that allow them to explore and analyze data without needing extensive technical expertise. It often involves the use of intuitive data visualization tools, drag-and-drop interfaces, and pre-built templates to streamline the data discovery and analysis process.
- User Involvement:
- Pervasive BI: Pervasive BI encourages active participation and engagement from all users within the organization. It emphasizes the importance of fostering a data-driven culture where employees at all levels are encouraged to leverage data to inform their decision-making processes.
- Self-Service BI: Self-service BI puts the power of data analysis directly into the hands of individual users, allowing them to create their own reports, dashboards, and visualizations without relying on IT or data specialists. It empowers users to explore data, ask ad hoc questions, and derive insights in real-time.
- Governance and Security:
- Pervasive BI: Pervasive BI typically involves the implementation of robust data governance and security measures to ensure that data is accessed, analyzed, and shared in a controlled and compliant manner. It may involve the establishment of data access controls, data quality standards, and auditing mechanisms to protect sensitive information and ensure regulatory compliance.
- Self-Service BI: While self-service BI empowers users to access and analyze data independently, it also requires careful consideration of data governance and security concerns. Organizations must implement measures to ensure that users have access to the appropriate data sources and that sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access or misuse.