Contributed by Gert H. N. Laursen and Jesper Thorlund
In Business Analytics for Managers, we emphasize that analytics and BI initiatives are complex processes that involve parties all across an organization. And those processes are only as strong as the weakest link. What good will it do for a company to have the best data warehouse in the world if there are no analysts? What is the point of having a corporate strategy, using information as a strategic asset, if no one trusts the data or the IT organization does not make relevant information available? What is the point of employing top analysts if they are not given the proper tools, methodologies, and instructions for what to do?
Hence the central chapters of the book deal with what the different layers and functions in the organization must do in order to play their part. The book includes a chapter for strategy makers, functional heads, analysts, BI technicians, and IT professionals. Also included are very concrete suggestions about how to make this business process work via a business process owner, which could either be a chief information officer or a Business Intelligence Competency Center whose internal work flows are very similar to the process presented in the model.
In addition, the book gives hints about how to make business cases. We found that the ability to document the value of being able to make better decisions is an essential skill for BI professionals, so we dedicated a full chapter with hints about how to do this. Finally, in our work as consultants, we have found it valuable to clearly distinguish between different kinds of information in terms of how they are used.
We divide information into four groups: (1) “lead” information, which you need in order to revolutionize your processes and take them to the next level; (2) “lag” information, which you use to monitor, control, and optimize already exiting processes; (3) “learning” information, which is the knowledge management element of BI and helps to retain learning, so that other members of the organization can reuse it, or to simply find those people who have prior experience on the subject; and (4) ”operational” information, which is used in a business process, has no relationship to BI as such, and is what you would use under all circumstances.
Because traditional BI typically focuses only on generating “lag” information, we think it is important to distinguish among the four types of information and that you have to include the “lead” and “learn” information in your information strategy in order to be able to compete successfully in the information age. After all, “lag” information typically only shows how hard you have been working, whereas “lead” information will show how you can work smarter, not harder. The “learn” information will institutionalize and potentially turn your analytical learning into sustainable competitive advantages for your organization.
