Business Intelligence Strategy
Business Intelligence (BI) is the term used to describe the technology and strategy associated with an organization’s
data analysis. The technology lets you visualize your company's previous performance, current performance, and
prospects. A Business Intelligence strategy is a road map for how your company uses the data it generates. Today's
rapidly changing commercial landscape has alerted companies to the staggering amount of enterprise data that holds
valuable insights.
An effective BI implementation strategy requires a lot of planning, technical know-how, change management, and
coordinated cooperation between teams. It's not just about having your IT team plug in a new piece of tech; it is a
continuous business-wide endeavor. Microsoft, a renowned software behemoth, plays an important role in this emerging
field of data science. At the forefront of Microsoft’s cloud-based suite of tools and services are Power BI, Azure
Synapse Analytics, and SQL Server.
In the article, Chiron explores the main steps you, as a modern business owner, should take when building business
intelligence tactics and the features of Microsoft’s Business Intelligence solutions.
Aligning BI Initiatives with Business Goals
A good BI strategy meshes with the organization’s overall goals. Review your company’s vision, mission, and strategic philosophy to determine which KPI best reflects a proposed BI strategy. Are you looking to improve customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs, or enhance product development? Do you want to boost profit margins and sales growth? A BI has multitudinous functions. It is important to know which BI feature works for your company. For example, Chipotle developed a unified tray of their restaurant locations to weigh their performance to determine where to make improvements and uplift customer experience. Coca-Cola used BI to create personalized dashboards for customer service experts.
Defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs are crucial as they let you know whether your BI implementation strategy aligns with your company’s goals. Common KPIs include sales growth rate, customer acquisition cost, and profit margins. These KPIs help business owners gauge the effectiveness of a business intelligence strategy and make adjustments as needed.Assessing Current Data Infrastructure
At every level of your company, review its data needs. Some companies have in-house analysts with powerful statistical and visualization tools. If your company has a sales staff, they might need real-time consumer data.Choosing and Implementing Microsoft Technologies
The next stage is selecting the right Microsoft BI tools, such as Power BI, Azure Synapse Analytics, and SQL Server. These tools help small, mid, and large companies with cost-effective, self-service analytics, reporting and integration capabilities, and comprehensive data analysis across departments.Power BI
Power BI is a cloud-domiciled business intelligence platform that allows users to create reports and build dashboards. It offers comprehensive data visualization capabilities, making it one of the most frequented BI tools. It integrates easily with Excel, Access, SharePoint, cloud platforms, and lots more. It is suitable for companies of all sizes. Key features of Power BI include:- Interactive dashboards
- Real-time analytics
- AI-powered insights
- Mobile accessibility
Azure Synapse Analytics
Azure Synapse is a robust analytics service that converges data warehousing and big data analytics. It meshes excellently with other Azure services such as Azure Machine Learning and Azure Data Lake to process large-scale business data operations and complex analytics. It is suitable for large companies that need advanced analytics, computing power, and storage. Key features of Azure Synapse Analytics include:- Scalability
- Data integration
- Real-time data processing
- Support for SQL and Spark
SQL Server
SQL is a relational database management system that handles data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP). With its BI capabilities (including SSRS and SSIS), SQL server allows businesses to generate reports and harvest insights from their data. SQL Server is ideal for mid-to-large-sized businesses that require comprehensive data integration and reporting capabilities. Key features of SQL Server include:- Seamless integration with Microsoft tools
- Data processing and reporting
- On-premise and cloud options
Building a Data-Driven Culture
A data-driven culture is one where decision-making at all levels of the organization is inspired by data rather than experience or intuition. Data in such an organization is part and parcel of its daily processes, including planning and reporting operations. The democratization of data is essential in every cadre of the company because more stakeholders should be encouraged to access and utilize data. Business intelligence best practices for success include rewarding employees and teams that promote data-driven practices and creating recognition programs for employees who showcase effective use of data for measurable business improvements. Building a data-driven culture requires effective leadership, clear communication of objectives, tools, and employee training. Strong leadership commitment sends signals to the rest of the organization that data is not simply a flashy tool for a company to brag about, but a veritable indicator of how the company operates. The leadership should underscore a vision for how data will help the brand attain its goals and outline specific objectives for all the different departments.
Building the BI Team
Assemble a dedicated BI team consisting of data scientists, analysts, IT professionals, and departmental heads to manage and execute BI best practices. These individuals have a high awareness of the daily needs of their department and can provide insights into the types of data that should be collected and evaluated. Encourage cross-departmental sharing and collaboration on joint analysis of data. This diminishes the propensity to work in silos, providing a fertile ground for agile practices in the organization. As a BI strategy example, a hospital BI team could create a predictive model that identifies high-risk patients, facilitating proactive medical intervention. Hospitals tend to record drastic decreases in readmission rates for chronic disease patients. In financial services, a BI team helps identify fraudulent activities and curtail risks. The team can identify anomalies in the transaction data and whistle-blow fraudulent actions before they escalate. This team should have interpretation and insight-generation competencies. Assign BI duties to team members and provide additional training where necessary.Planning and Implementing the BI Strategy
Once a strategy is set in motion, it is crucial to monitor its progress and make adjustments along the way. Review BI reports regularly and get feedback from stakeholders to ensure that the strategy meets its business transformation objectives. Review BI summaries regularly to ensure that the strategy is meeting the expected outcome.Monitoring and Optimizing the BI Strategy
It is crucial to monitor and optimize your BI solutions’ performance. Continuously analyzing and adjusting procedures and technologies means your BI function can evolve with your business as it can now improve its data quality, reporting preciseness, and overall effectiveness. Such an iterative approach ensures that your BI strategy is in tandem with the organization’s evolving needs and objectives while adopting the latest practices/advances in data analytics.
