BI begins its `new life`

The answer? Business intelligence.

One of the major reasons for BI`s rise to fame, in this regard, is that it is moving into what experts refer to as a new phase in its life cycle. In fact, it is BI`s third phase.

Another analyst group - sees the BI market moving in 15-year cycles, delegates heard on the opening morning of ITWeb`s BI Conference 2007. ITWeb events programme director Mariette du Plessis outlined the progression, according to IDC.

BI in its early years (1975 to 1990) assisted in the simple analysis and reporting of data, as businesses began to gather and automate more information. Its use was severely restricted to long-term strategic decision-making.

The years 1990 to 2005 were known as the "modern era", noted Du Plessis, where easier-to-use client-server based BI tools hit the market and companies saw the growing importance of being able to finger the pulse of every aspect of their business, though only at very specific management levels.

POST-MODERN

So between 2005 and 2020, BI is in its third wave of evolution, she noted. The characteristics of this stage include an emphasis on expanding the reach of BI to various members of an organisation, increasing its use in smaller companies, and being able to generate real-time and predictive data.

Overriding all these trends is the thought that BI is no longer something one can use for strategic decision-making, but can be immensely useful at an operational level.

Allowing and encouraging participation from users throughout the organisation to contribute accurately to data repositories, and to extract the information to better manage the daily running of the business, was, therefore, an understandably important discussion theme during the conference.

FINE ART OF FINANCE

"BI is the central way that IT can add value to a business," asserted the enigmatic Martin Vipond, KPMG`s director of information risk management, "this is why it`s currently such an area of focus."

As we enter the third life-cycle phase of BI, Vipond attaches his own areas to concentrate on, from an auditing perspective.

He points to BI`s changing role in the area of finance, its use as a strategic tool that is used at all levels of the organisation, and justifying the investment in BI software, are pervasive issues.

"BI has a critical role to play when it comes to financial data. In this area more than any other in the business, it is so essential that the information is highly accurate".

RETURNING INVESTMENT

A recent KPMG`s survey threw some interesting insights into the uses of BI when it comes to financial reporting:

"Aligning management reporting to strategy, and improving the quality of reporting are the two most important gaps that need to be filled by finance departments," noted Vipond, based on the survey`s results. ITWeb`s 2007 BI Survey showed that 46% of respondents had seen a return on investment (ROI), but 28% had expected more revenue generation, 45% had not seen an ROI, and 9% couldn`t say.

Of those that had deployed BI appropriately, the two main ways in which ROI was generated was in better visibility of where the problems are, and faster decision-making processes, the survey revealed.

While many of the respondents were in mature stages of BI deployments, many projects were still concerned with month-end reporting, with only 21% using BI to link key performance indicators and scorecards to business strategy, and only 20% have been able to effect real-time operational reporting.

"BI has matured, but it hasn`t grown up," Du Plessis surmised, "its got to be about proactive, real-time operational access to data, integrated with business processes."