Measuring, presenting and optimising the benefits of Business Intelligence activities

26^th August 2009 | Category: BI 

Planned BI activities are typically caught between cost-effectiveness and the difficulty of presenting their benefit. After all, to be honest, the proof can be seen only after the end of the project, when the BI solution has been in use for some time.

One Swiss logistics company was faced with the question of demonstrating the benefits. The objective was to find out whether and how a widely deployed management information system was actually used, and what point in its life-cycle the application (or parts of it) had reached – and, ideally, to do this at any time. With the help of this kind of information, it is possible not only to compare the investment costs for a BI project with the actual benefits, thus demonstrating the added value, but also to better forecast planned investments in future enhancements.

1. Definition of the information required to demonstrate the benefit of the solution. For example: user accesses, frequency of use of content/application areas or the entire application, criteria for or against the shut-down of certain areas of the application, or explicit reports for standardised presentation.

2. Development and availability of a technical solution for meta-reporting (“BI about BI”). This records the actual use of the customer-specific application, and makes the information available for standardised and analytical reports, statistics and trend models. Part of the solution provides support during the decision phase of projects and enhancements, and permits identification of the life-cycle of the application (or parts thereof). In addition, the solution provides various detailed views that help to evaluate the actual use of the application, so as to provide optimal support for the operation of the system and its processes.

3. Establishment of a control process that ensures that the findings obtained are merged into the decision-making processes, that measures are deduced, and that measurable added value can be achieved.

Conclusion: Especially in the case of large BI applications (Management Cockpits, Management Information Systems, etc.) with large numbers of users, where the actual usage can no longer be ascertained by simply asking the users or making an estimate, transparency is of the greatest importance. It can thus be seen that, with the help of well-founded information and the proper statistical values, and through a lived control process, the benefit and added value of a BI project can be demonstrated, planned enhancements can be more purposefully decided, and operation can be supported by detailed information.

Kai Schlecker, Senior Consultant, Brightcon AG