Focused on better decisions through Business Intelligence
In many companies executives complain that the information available in their systems is out of date. That reality translates into financial losses and, in the worst case, into lost customers. Take an error in the product warehouse inventory: it can stop you serving a customer you promised a timely, quality delivery to.
The first reaction is to improve or replace the obsolete information system with something more modern and faster.
In those moments of desperation our vendors will be ready to sell us a new version of the existing system. The new version, however, may not be the best financial, operational or long-term option. Before deciding, you have to identify the business objectives to be met, and it is worth pausing to review whether the company is really prepared to make the leap to a major technology change.
Companies look for systems that help them:
Decide, or solve problems.
Identify the characteristics of their potential customers.
Access their suppliers' references.
Identify synergies and competencies in similar businesses, and so understand why those businesses succeeded or failed.
To achieve that you need:
A clear diagnosis of data quality.
Coherent policies for loading and recording information.
Traceability in the data.
New systems are worthless without quality data.
In parallel you will have to assess the company's hardware, since you may well have to improve it for the system to run genuinely fast (the cloud is an attractive option for bringing costs down). That will also mean paying attention to software licences, since the new system will need them in order to stay current.
An information system is a significant investment, but the information stored inside it is more significant still. It is a vital asset and must not be put at risk.
The conclusion from all of the above is that transactional systems alone are no longer enough today, because they have to feed a layer that optimises decision-making. With transactional systems we simply control business processes, without making it possible to analyse the critical variables and their impact on operations.
It is therefore advisable to follow these steps:
Define the business objectives associated with each area of the company.
Establish the questions you need to answer for each business objective.
Establish KPIs for each business objective: the time and the metrics you need in order to meet it.
Identify the areas of the organisation that serve each objective (there may be several per objective).
Identify the transactional processes associated with each KPI.
Evaluate a methodology for implementing the decision models, one that accounts for the cultural changes needed to guarantee success in the organisation.
Evaluate technologies and ways of operating that minimise the impact on cost.
Before replacing your old information systems, stop and assess what you actually need. Your solution is not a change of software or hardware but the direction you give the project: Business Intelligence is the best option.
