Some information systems have exceeded the boundaries of the department and his knowledge has spread to all areas of the company. As the technologies are becoming easier to use and accessible for all business casuistry, his knowledge extends and extends beyond the field of "understood" by the experts, to be known by every company profiles. Concepts such as CRM, ERP, etc., Not long ago in companies known only to the department and the department involved (Marketing and Sales for CRM, ERP Operations, Human Resources for the intranet, etc.).. Concepts today are managed and understood by anyone in the business world.
As for Business Intelligence, I believe that unfortunately is still preserve of experts and technologists. Today it is very common to find a business decision makers are unclear about the functions, spheres of influence, potential and business benefits of a Business Intelligence system. The BI is still known by a few, there has been democratized, it has jumped the hurdles of technology to be part of each and every one of the departments of companies. In my opinion there are several reasons for this.
The BI need to speak in the language of business: traditionally, and still today, the BI is approached from a prism technology and business. It is not done the necessary emphasis on the advantages and benefits of the BI system to adapt. Yes it is in technological terms, but not in terms of business, the ROI after all. The driveway of a BI system in the company remains through the director of technology, when it should be from general management. The BI vendors have their natural partner in the informatics, when they should be the business decision makers. This narrow vision is one of the impediments to BI systems to become popular with businesses.
The BI is still perceived as expensive, targeted for large enterprises. This perception is true for many BI platforms, even targeted towards the large account. But many have already seen that the future lies in SMEs and are adapting their technologies to access them. In this sense, SaaS or Cloud Computing (pay per use, access to the platform through a web browser, without facilities, licenses or zero investment in hardware, etc.) Is the time taken to make accessible a Business Intelligence system for small and medium enterprises. Major BI vendors such as MicroStrategy, BusinessObjects, etc.. are making great efforts to offer their platforms under this model. Others, like Litebi, RoamBI, BIME are "native SaaS."
The BI is not perceived as a critical system for business. BI systems currently are not seen as critical to the business. And if we talk about SMEs, much less. When a BI system becomes vital to control the course of a business? Normally occurs when the company has already achieved a certain level of growth, but a disorganized growth, especially in regard to information systems. There has been a strategy of development of information systems, each department has adopted the systems best suited him better when it suited him. As a result, there is a real connection between the various applications and business systems, so business decision-makers have no visibility of corporate information and can not make informed decisions. It is at this point that a BI system becomes critical, which in many cases too late, in my opinion.
The BI needs to be simple, not only use, but especially to configure and integrate with other information systems companies. Do not forget that BI is not a self-contained system, you need to feed on other systems (data warehouse, ERP, CRM, intranet, etc.) To be valid. A CRM, ERP, Intranet, are self-contained systems: no need for other systems to carry out their functions: they allow data entry (invoices, customer data, employee data, payroll) and provide an output (all systems have a small module reports to manipulate and display the information previously entered). It is highly recommended to bind a CRM with a billing system or order, but is not required to work. ERP has the same case mix.
This last aspect, the ease and simplicity of consolidating all business information is still not resolved, and in my opinion is the mother of all battles, the great obstacle to be BI systems within enterprises popularize . I get that platform to interconnect all systems of corporate information in an easy, effective and inexpensive open the way for the democratization of BI.
Raúl Benet
Partner / BI Manager en Adysa Group
E-mail: rbenet@adysagroup.com
Tel: +34 91 431 17 48
www.adysagroup.com
