Business Intelligence

Businesses are faced with an abundance of data but surprisingly few have the information they need for timely and accurate decision making; or worse they are misled by inaccurate or poorly presented data. Business Intelligence (BI) is aimed at helping an organisation clarify and measure its business strategy using relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at all levels in the business. It also helps to realise the  potential of the data and empowers people by providing easy to use and relevant reporting tools. The main objectives of a business intelligence strategy are:

• Drive business improvement. Having the ability to see quickly how well your business is performing allows you to make decisions fast and put into place actions that are focused on the areas that require immediate attention.
• Provide information that is reinforcing a business strategy. It allows an organisation to measure itself against the defined goals and objectives ensuring KPIs are useful and relevant. What gets measured gets done.
• Providing consistent reporting and information sharing. A single version of the truth that is easily accessible by everybody and reporting tools that are selected based on the requirements of the users and the information.
• Standardise data. Multiple disparate systems result in fragmented information that is often stored in different formats. BI can help standardise and rationalise data.
• Improve data quality. If you can see the information clearly you can identify anomolies with the data quickly and put into action initiatives to clean the data.

The Business Intelligence Roadmap

Waterstons have developed a BI Roadmap that has successfully helped our clients to implement a business intelligence strategy and unlock the potential of their data. The process takes a business through strategy clarification and definition of relevant KPIs, mapping these to the data sources, and design and implementation of a data warehouse and relevant reporting tools.

Alistair McLeod is an Executive Consultant and a Business Intelligence specialist.

If you would like to discuss the roadmap with one of our consultants please contact us at business.intelligence@waterstons.co.uk