Business Intelligence: What you don’t know CAN hurt you!
The decision to invest in business intelligence (BI) tools can and should be an easy one. To put it quite simply, good information and intelligence is required by every organization. In an era where competition is fierce, having ‘accurate’ information in hand can act as a catalyst for building competitive advantages. It can also help an organization to make quicker and more logical decisions, which in the long run leads to a more profitable bottom line.
The decision as to exactly how to invest in BI, however, can be quite involved. With so many established BI software providers – including SAP, SAS, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle – how can you determine which tool will give you the most bang for your buck? How can you maximize the return on your Business Intelligence Investment?
Maximizing return on your BI investment
1. Select the proper BI tool
Every organization has different needs for business intelligence tools. For large organizations with tens of thousands of employees among several business channels, the absolute necessity of a collaborative business intelligence tool will likely justify the investment. For others, sophisticated business intelligence tools that offer many capabilities may not be necessary. Depending on your organization’s needs, it would be a good decision to explore the offerings of both the large BI players and the smaller ones.
It is useless to drive a Ferrari when the allowable speed limit in your area is only 50km/hour.
Bear in mind that even the most sophisticated of BI tools are unable to address all of today’s complex business requirements. Many still rely on customized desktop applications, such as MS Excel and MS Access, to do some analysis for their own areas or departments. The appropriate BI tool for your company will be well aligned with your company’s strategy and organizational capabilities.
2. Choose the right people for the job
Having a BI tool suitable to the organization solves many issues associated with the data itself. Gone are the days of inaccurate data, incomplete information, data error, inconsistent data formatting, and the like. But just how useful is this data anyway? The ability for an organization to draw accurate conclusions from the available information depends on who is actually retrieving the data and performing the analysis. Experienced and knowledgeable staff can make all the difference. To obtain accurate analyses and meaningful insights, your staff must have a strong knowledge of the business as well as sufficient technical experience in using the software tool and its advanced analytics. If someone lacks knowledge of the business, or if they are unfamiliar with the software or best data analysis practices, the conclusions may be inaccurate.
Finding the right talent is the key so that real value can be brought out from having the BI tool.
3. Manage the Change – Even After Implementation
To ensure that a BI tool is continuously being used to its full potential, it is imperative that staff get necessary training during implementation supported by effective change management practices. Post implementation, it is important that users have a robust source for ongoing support for questions and issues.
Finally, working with obsolete software or inefficient processes will not help your business sustain the competitive advantages that it has previously worked so hard to build. As businesses evolve, BI tools are often required to develop too, through software modifications and enhancements. And since many organizations still rely on customized desktop applications, these changes can create some problems down the road when the application needs to be updated or new features need to be added. It is important then that the new implementation and subsequent upgrades follow well documented processes to avoid inefficiencies or worse – analysis that results from corrupt data.
Business Intelligence = Software Tools + Knowledge Management Processes
BI software tools are needed by every organization to make better and wiser decisions. And there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all BI tool. Each organization needs to weigh the benefits against the costs of deploying a particular BI tool and opt for the most favourable alternative. Chances are the optimal BI tool for one organization won’t be the same as the optimal one for another. Furthermore, organizations need appropriate knowledge management processes and they need to ensure the right people are analyzing the right data in the right ways. Keeping in mind the 3 key factors listed here will bring you that much closer to success in your Business Intelligence System implementation.

Business Intelligence Road Map to Smarter Decisions
If your organization is having difficulty deriving greater insight, understanding, and intelligence from your data, you are not alone. Data is everywhere. But accessing, organizing, and making sense of it can be daunting.

Power BI vs Tableau – Which is Better?
Although Tableau and Power BI are similar business intelligence tools, there are key differences that organizations should be aware of when considering analytical requirement

6 Essential Data Visualization Best Practices
We have identified 6 Essential Data Visualization Best Practices. Adhering to these best practices makes it easier and faster for users to gain insight from large volumes of data and thereby make the best decisions for their business.

Optimus SBR Named as 2021 Great Place to Work
Optimus SBR has been named as Great Place to Work for a third consecutive year.

Executing on Round 2 of Municipal Modernization Program Reviews in Ontario: Should You Approach Them as a Marathon or a Sprint?
Our overview of areas of focus for the second round of the Municipal Modernization Program, Service Delivery Reviews themes, and advice on how to execute with the funds made available for this investment.

Optimus SBR named to the Growth List for 8th Consecutive Year!
Canadian Business named Optimus SBR on the 32nd annual Growth List!

Adapting in a New Era of Corporate Travel
Travel is one of the most impacted sectors hit this year due to COVID-19. Organizations need to begin to take a critical look at what corporate travel will look like in a post-COVID world.

Optimus SBR Named as 2020 Great Place to Work
For the second consecutive year, Optimus SBR is thrilled and honoured to be named on the 2020 list of Best Workplaces in Professional Services, and as one of this year’s Best Workplaces™ in Canada. This year, we’ve also been named to the inaugural list of Best Workplaces in Ontario.

The Driving Need to Reassess Processes & Controls Related to COVID-19 Responses
COVID-19 has thrust a massive amount of change onto financial institutions. Conducting a review of the processes and controls put in place during these unprecedented times is critical as financial institutions face an increasingly complex risk environment.

Pivoting When the World Changes: Getting the Most Out of Municipal Service Delivery Reviews in the New COVID-19 Reality
Municipal services matter, and not just the ones that people see. The ones that keep things humming behind the scenes matter too. And never has that been more apparent than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How to Improve Analytics Capabilities and AAIM for Success
With technological advancement rapidly reshaping how we do business, a company’s ability to leverage data to make more informed decisions is the key to staying competitive in today’s market.
Whether your organization is beginning their analytics journey or is further along in its analytics maturity, an objective analytics capabilities assessment focused on using data to make better decisions is an important first step to achieve your analytics goals.

Optimus SBR Named 2022 Most Admired Corporate Cultures™ Winner!
What a thrill it is to be honoured as a 2022 Most Admired Corporate Cultures™ Winner! This award celebrates the Bold Attitude and Entrepreneurial Spirit each of us embodies.