Contributed by Gert H. N. Laursen and Jesper Thorlund

Our book, Business Analytics for Managers: Taking Business Intelligence Beyond Reporting, was published last month. The book is the latest in the Wiley and SAS Business Series.

When people ask us why we wrote the book, we usually give them one of two answers. First, we tell the story about how, during a Christmas dinner, we discussed why it is that so few companies with many well-educated people still cannot figure out how to use information efficiently in the way they do business. That evening we drew up a draft, edited it a few times, and agreed that this was a good model for how analytics and business intelligence should work. Jesper, who at the time was writing a separate analytics book for the U.S. market, kept the draft and insisted that this was material for a new book—and he was able to convince Gert on the idea. A few weeks later a meeting was arranged with the prestigious Danish publisher Børsens Forlag, which agreed to proceed with the idea.

The other answer we usually give people is somewhat blunter: “It was a book that was waiting to be written.” There is good literature out there, which either sees information management from a purely technical or from a purely business perspective. However, this literature does not close the gap between these two areas.

In general we also find that they often could be more systematic in guiding the reader toward specifics, for example, “So what do I do on Monday?” Very often the literature is based on good observations and inspiring case studies, which is all good, but it is also very hard in practice to act on.

Finally, fact speaks its own language. According to various sources and our own experience as consultants, approximately 25 percent of business intelligence (BI) projects are abandoned, while 50 percent are challenged for their costs, quality, or not being delivered on time. The remaining 25 percent are implemented successfully.

Formulated in another way, you should expect to fail when you start a BI project. That is why there is a desperate need for a framework on how to run these sorts of projects and how to manage the business processes surrounding BI. We believe that you have to master the way you handle information; that is a simple consequence of living in the information age. Otherwise, you will become an infosaurus that is eventually outsmarted sooner or later.

*******
This post is the first in a series about Business Analytics for Managers. Check back next week to discover why reading this book is a must before beginning a BI initiative in your company.