Redefining the Role of IT in Business Intelligence

If our businesses are going to survive, we need to stop designing Business Intelligence systems that tell us what we want to hear, and which work well in good times but behave incomprehensibly during periods of significant inconsistency. Instead, we need to build systems that empower our best analysts to help correct flaws in our activities and identify opportunities that we can exploit. We need to be in a position where existing paradigms can be challenged and replaced by new ones on an ongoing basis. However, just as new scientific theories need to fit with observed reality, these new business approaches must be well supported by the facts as recorded in a company’s information repository.

The recent crisis in financial systems, resulting in major corporations going cap-in-hand to governments for handouts, dramatically illustrates why we need to move beyond reliance on reporting systems to adoption of a challenge-based system. With a challenge-based system, key analysts and “out-of-the-box” thinkers with sufficient analytic capability and insights are given unconstrained access to the data warehouse so that they can identify problems and recommend corrective action based on the facts. In this way, the people currently controlling the “spin” on corporate information can be educated (or bypassed if necessary), and executives can be better informed and made more responsive to constantly changing business needs and opportunities.

The IT department cannot continue to dictate how IT-held data will be used: users have to be empowered to make these decisions themselves within their area of primary expertise. The focus of IT should instead be on making data available to end users, ensuring that it is not corrupted and that it can be audited when required, and on infrastructural issues like security, disaster recovery and so on. The job of the IT department should thus go far beyond merely distributing preconfigured reports, to encompass the more essential task of empowering users to get what they really need, when and how they need it, and to make sure that adequate resources are in place to get the job done. In short, IT departments need to work in a similar way to utility companies, providing users with infrastructure options but not with final solutions – and as with a power company, for example, fair and appropriate charge-out policies and procedures need to be put in place, so that IT can be transformed from a cost centre into a profit centre.

So, the primary role of IT should be to provide unfettered access to data, to make sure that the data will not be lost for any reason (even natural disasters), and to meet various levels of demand. While security has traditionally been another key issue for IT, even this area might be better handled by a specialized department, with IT providing assistance as needed. In any event, IT should not be able to prevent anyone with the appropriate security levels (which in some cases may exceed those of the head of IT) from getting to the data they need. Often, invocations of security or the impact on performance for “other system users” are simply a ruse to cover-up for the fact that the data is not readily available or that the system is not designed to cope with the demand.

We need to understand that a functional Business Intelligence (BI) system is governed by the same rules that govern any other large architectural undertaking like an office building or an elevated highway. It must meet the diversified needs of the community it serves and those of the people whose lives it affects. It also has to fit within the constraints already in place in the environment in which it is to be established – since very few of us get to work with a “clean slate”, and the legal and administrative hurdles can often be formidable.

Successful implementation of BI systems thus needs to be considered as part art and part science. Pure science has not been able to solve all society’s problems, and those who try to adopt a purely “scientific” approach to BI will not be successful. Fundamentally, the field of technology is not just about pursuing technical innovation, but about helping human beings become more effective and productive in pursuing their goals. In my following posts, I will be looking at how IT departments can go about designing systems that allow for just this sort of flexible, on-demand provision of information services to analysts, with the ultimate aim of enabling truly effective decision support for maximum repsonsiveness in today’s unpredictable business environment.

Arthur Ritchie