Whitepaper-Business Intelligence- empowering business

White Paper

Business Intelligence

Empowering Business

Logica is a leading IT and business services company, employing 39,000 people across 36 countries. It

provides business consulting, systems integration, and IT and business process outsourcing services. Logica

works closely with its customers to release their potential – enabling change that increases their efficiency,

accelerates growth and manages risk. It applies its deep industry knowledge, technical excellence and global

delivery expertise to help its customers build leadership positions in their markets. Logica is listed on both the

London Stock Exchange and Euronext (Amsterdam) (LSE: LOG; Euronext: LOG). More information is

available at www.logica.com.

Copyright statement:

This document contains information which is confidential and of value to Logica. It may be used only for the

agreed purpose for which it has been provided. Logica’s prior written consent is required before any part is

reproduced. Except where indicated otherwise, all names, trade marks, and service marks referred to in this

document are the property of a company in the Logica group or its licensors.


Empowering Business

2

Introduction 3

Definition of Business Intelligence 4

BI Business Drivers 5

Business Intelligence Foundation 7

Business Intelligence Development 9

BI Organization 11

BI Maturity Model 13

Wrap up 15

Contents


Empowering Business

3

Introduction

This paper gives an introduction of Business Intelligence from a business

perspective. Too often we find Business Intelligence initiatives at customer sites

that are very much IT oriented. These initiatives started with all good intentions

and for very good reasons. Somewhere down the road however, business focus

is lost and technology pushes the initiative forward.

With this paper we give you some guidelines to keep your Business Intelligence

initiative business driven and be more successful in utilizing Business Intelligence

to improve your Business. We start with a clear definition of what Business

Intelligence is about and why Business Intelligence is important to you. Then we

go in to more detail on the necessary foundations for a successful Business

Intelligence program, our business oriented development methodology and the

important organizational aspects of Business Intelligence.

Based on these BI basics we explain the BI maturity model which supports you in

assessing the current maturity of your BI imitative and supports you in achieving

the next required level of maturity. We wrap up with a summary of our services to

support your Business Intelligence initiative.


Empowering Business

4

Definition of Business Intelligence

The strength of a good Business Intelligence solution is delivering the right

information at the right time and place to the right person. The value of the

delivered information is measured by the improvement of your business

decisions, by having the information available to you. A more formal definition is:

Delivering and managing information for monitoring and management of an

organization and business processes. Key components in this information

delivery process are:

• Using structured data from multiple sources.

• Transformation from transactional data tot management information.

• Creating a historical view.

The IT marketplace has acknowledged the value of Business Intelligence for your

organization for some time now. Many products, services and solutions are

offered to you. Nearly all of them claim to have the tailor-made solution to support

your specific business issues. In our opinion these are all valuable products and

propositions, but only when utilized for the right reasons and as part of a business

driven methodology.

In general Business Intelligence supports you in reporting, analyzing and

modelling your business aligned with the strategic objectives of your organization.

Reporting capabilities enable you to measure the past and current performance.

Analyzing capabilities enable you to analyze past and current performance to

improve your business on a tactical level. Modelling capabilities enable you to act

on a strategic level on the results of analysis by re-modelling your business

processes.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it(Added value of BI according to the CEO General Electrics)

Definition of BI

BI Functions


Empowering Business

5

BI Business Drivers

Your business case for Business Intelligence should always somehow be related

to the business strategy and business objectives of your organization. To get an

understanding of the business strategy of an organization we use the value

discipline model of Treacy and Wiersema. In this model three different strategies

for an organization are identified:

1. Operational Excellence.

Superb operations and execution. Often by providing a reasonable quality at

a very low price. Task-oriented vision towards personnel. The focus is on

efficiency, streamlined operations, Supply Chain Management, no-frills.

Volume is important. Most large international corporations are operating out

of this discipline. Measuring systems are very important. Extremely limited

variation in product assortment.

2. Product Leadership.

Very strong in innovation and brand marketing. Company operates in

dynamic markets. The focus is on development, innovation, design, time to

market, high margins in a short time frame. Flexible company cultures.

3. Customer Intimacy.

Company excels in customer attention and customer service. Tailors its

products and services to individual or almost individual customers. Large

variation in product assortment. Focus is on: CRM, deliver products and

services on time and above customer expectations, lifetime value concepts,

reliability, being close to the customer. Give decision authority to employees

that are close to the customer.

Business

Strategy

Product

Leadership

Customer

Intimacy

Operational

Excellence

“Best Product”

“Best Service”“Best Total Cost”

Value Disciplines

Treacy & Wiersema


Empowering Business

6

Analyzing your business strategy based on the value discipline model enables

you to identify the areas where the organization will gain the most value from

Business Intelligence. This supports you in focusing your BI initiative. Usually an

organization will need to excel on one of the defined value disciplines to be

successful. However the other two cannot be neglected of course, but should

score at least on average. In large organizations often separate divisions or

business units own one of the defined value disciplines.

One additional important business driver for Business Intelligence is corporate

governance. Organization are more and more confronted with obligations to

inform regulators, share-holders and the public of their performance.

Organizations, and sometimes high level management themselves, are held

accountable for their performance and must comply to several regulations and

legislations. Some examples of current legislations and regulations that

companies are confronted with, are Basel II, Solvency II, Sarbanes Oxley (SOX)

and MIFID. Business Intelligence supports your organization in achieving the

right information flow from your operational business processes to comply with

regulatory reporting requirements.

Risk & Compliance


Empowering Business

7

Business Intelligence Foundation

Regardless of the specific business case, there are two factors that in almost any

BI initiative are critical for success. The first is consistency of information. The

second is traceability. A BI solution usually brings together data from different

source systems and passes multiple levels of enrichment and aggregation. The

figure below shows this schematically.

Integration of information from multiple sources often reveals inconsistencies.

When enriching and aggregating information to support the different control levels

within an organization also traceability of information becomes a serious

challenge. The degree in which the developed BI solution resolves these issues is

key to the success of the overall BI initiative.

Key in achieving accountable, consistent and traceable information in a Business

Intelligence solution is the presence of data management processes in your

organization. Business data definitions, data quality measurements, data

ownership and data governance processes should already be part of any

organization. In many cases the first iterations of a Business Intelligence initiative

still fail due to lack of these capabilities in an organization.

Source

Systems

Service

Centers Finance Operations Marketing HR

CXO

Reporting

Dimensions

Consistency

Tra

ceab

ility a

nd

Au

dit a

bility

Critical Success

Factors for BI

Consistent, Traceable

& Auditable Information


Empowering Business

8

To support organizations in getting the foundations for a successful Business

Intelligence initiative right, we formed a Enterprise Information Management

Practice hosting and developing extensive knowledge and experience in data,

information and content management. We use the following basic model for

Enterprise Information Management.

In the model you will find all data, information and content related subjects placed

in relation to each other. Some important characteristics of the model are:

- Business Intelligence is not only based on the information out off

traditional databases, but more and more incorporates other valuable

content in your organization. We therefore integrated content

management in the model.

- Data Management is a very important and often under estimated phase

in achieving a good Business Intelligence solution. Data Management

includes definition of your data (Data Modelling), classification and

valuing your data (Data Quality), manage your data and content as an

asset (Data Governance).

Before starting a Business Intelligence development process we suggest you

start with an assessment of your Business Intelligence foundation first, based on

the model we provide.

BusinessIntelligence

DataIntegration

BusinessDrivers

DataManagement

ProductLeadership

CustomerIntimacy

OperationalExcellence

CorporateGovernance

BusinessReporting

BusinessAnalytics

BusinessModeling

Data WareHousing

DataMigration

ContentManagement

DataGovernance

DataModeling

DataQuality

EnterpriseData &

Content

Understand and

value your data

Process your data

to actionable

information

Use actionable

Information to…

Measure and

improve your

Business

Foundation for Business Intelligence

Enterprise Information

Management

Data & Content

Management


Empowering Business

9

Business Intelligence Development

Any Business Intelligence development methodology should take into account at

least the following very important aspects:

• Business Intelligence development should be business driven at all times.

Alignment between business and IT is crucial and should be established at

the early beginning of the program and managed continuously during the

whole program.

• Business Intelligence development is a continuous improvement process.

Architecture and infrastructure should be selected and implemented with the

future in mind. Development on the other hand must be carried out in short

iterations delivering business value rapidly. A BI life cycle management

process is required to support continuous improvement.

With our Business Intelligence Framework we have a proven methodology

available for you. This framework is used by Logica in many Business Intelligence

projects and is also adopted by several of our existing customers as their own BI

development methodology. In BI Framework the development of Business

Intelligence is divided in four quadrants, linked together via BI Life Cycle

Management.


Framework


Empowering Business

10

Below a short description of the four phases in the Business Intelligence

development process:

• BI Business Plan

Definition or adjustment of the BI strategy based on business drivers and

strategic goals of your organization. The BI strategy is based not only on the

business needs, but also on the results of a feasibility study to manage

business expectations.

• BI Program Plan

The BI Program plan defines or adjusts the roadmap for your BI initiative.

Based on the result of the previous phase a business information analysis is

conducted to gather and prioritize business requirements. The BI architecture

and infrastructure will be designed or adjusted in this phase.The architecture

definition defines an appropriate architecture and infrastructure.

• BI Increments

Incremental design and development of the Data Integration processes and

the Data Warehouse model. Iterative design and development of reporting

and analytical applications.

• BI Exploitation

Ensuring availability, continuity and stability of the BI solution. Monitoring

data delivery by implementing Data Resource Management. Support

business users by implementing Information Delivery Management.

The majority of activities in the upper two quadrants, BI Business Plan and BI

Program plan, are the responsibility of the Business side of your organization and

should therefore be driven by the Business. The majority of activities in the lower

two quadrants, BI Increments en BI Exploitation, need strong commitment and

involvement from your IT organization.

The right-side quadrants, BI Program Plan and BI Increments, are change-driven

and should be managed as a program or project. The left-side quadrants, BI

Business Plan and BI Exploitation, should be implemented as part of your day-to-

day operation of Business Intelligence.

More information on our Business Intelligence Framework is available in our

recent publication “Business Intelligence Framework, ISBN/EAN 978-90-

9021764-2”.

Business & IT

Alignment

Change & Service

Alignment


Empowering Business

11

BI Organization

The exploitation of BI solutions is not fundamentally different, process-wise, from

the exploitation of other IT systems. Specific in the exploitation of a Business

Intelligence solutions however is the number of dependencies to manage. As

mentioned before a Business Intelligence solution usually integrates information

from multiple sources. Management of these interfaces is critical in order to

sustain the required level of information quality. Also specific for BI is the frequent

interaction with the information users in supporting and optimization of their

reporting and analytic applications.

A Business Intelligence Competence Centre should therefore have at least

incorporate three functions, being Information Delivery Management, Data

Resource Management and Operations/Maintenance.

Information Delivery Management

• Developing reporting and analytical applications.

• Supporting Business Users

• Information brokership

• Account management

Data Resource Management

• Data modelling and management.

• Data Integration process

modelling and management

• Data stewardship

• Monitoring of Data Quality

Operation & Maintenance

• Infrastructure providing

• Tooling providing

• System Integration

BI

Competence

Center


Competence Centre


Empowering Business

12

Below a short definition of the three required functions in the exploitation of a

Business Intelligence solution is given.

- Information Delivery Management

Within the Information Delivery Management function, functional and

business knowledge is available to develop information products for the

organization. Client contact with end-users from various parts business is

maintained. End-users are supported in the use of their reporting and

analytical applications and in defining business requirements for new

development.

- Data Resource Management

Within the Data Resource Management function, technical and functional

knowledge and experience is available to perform the translations for source

data into the central information model. Data delivery is evaluated on quality

and timeliness.

- Operations and maintenance

Within the Operations and maintenance function, daily operations of the BI

solution are supported. This consists of the continuous monitoring of the

aspects of continuity, stability and availability of the BI environment.

From the description of the functions we can also determine that a Business

Intelligence Competence Centre is preferable not an IT department only. In a

BICC you have to bring together knowledge workers, data specialists and IT staff.

BICC Business Driven


Empowering Business

13

BI Maturity Model

The diagram below illustrates evolution through many stages of BI maturity, from

infancy (traditional management reporting and spreadsheets) to adulthood

(enterprise data warehousing and analytic services). This model provides useful

context to BI maturity assessments in your organization because it aligns closely

with many of the BI success factors.

Adapted from the BI Maturity Model, Wayne Eckerson, TDWI Director of Research

The important aspects to consider when assessing the BI maturity of your

organization are:

- Executive Perception

How does your executive management perceive Business Intelligence. Is BI

just another cost center in your organization or does BI drive your business

or even the market in which your organization operates.

- Information Culture

How is Business Intelligence used within your organization. Are decision

makers always waiting for reports to be delivered by IT or is the right

information delivered to right person, on the right time and place.

Management Reporting

Analytical ServicesData Marts

Data Warehouses

Enterprise

Data

WarehousingSpreadmartArchitecture

Prenatal Infant Child Teenager Adult Sage

Executive

Perception

Cost

Center

Inform

Executives

Empower

Workers

Monitor

Processes

Drive the

Business

Drive the

Market

Information

Culture

IT

Backlog

Self

Service

Customized

Delivery

The BI

Utility

Analytics

CultureAwareness

Under-standing

Actionable

Information

Decision

Automation

Cost

Value

Adoption

Curve

BI Maturity Model


Empowering Business

14

- Analytics Culture

How well is Business Intelligence adopted by the knowledge workers in your

organization. Are they aware of the existence of Business Intelligence or is it

part of their day-to-day decision preparation processes.

- Cost and Value (ROI)

Does your investment in Business Intelligence pay-off. Very important in

answering this question is to also include the time knowledge workers spend

on analyzing the information delivered by BI. Is this time spend on improving

business with the received information or is this time spend on checking

consistency and quality of the delivered data,

- Architecture

Is Business Intelligence supported with a traditional management reporting

platform and spreadmarts or is an Enterprise Data Warehouse with Analytical

Services available.

This Maturity model enables you to measure the current maturity of Business

Intelligence of your organization. In the outcome often a unbalance occurs on the

different aspects of maturity. It is very important to start balancing all the aspects

to one level of maturity first and then start growing to the next level of maturity.


Empowering Business

15

Wrap up

In this paper we have given you an introduction of our vision on Business

Intelligence. Of course we can offer you our experienced consultants to support

your Business Intelligence initiative. We also used our capabilities and knowledge

to develop standardized service packages for our customers. Some examples

are:

• BI Framework methodology

Our knowledge and experience of many years has now been combined in a

practical framework. Our BI Framework is a guideline in the complex world of

Business Intelligence to make the right choices and trade-offs between the

many possibilities offered by the market.

• BI Review Packages

With our Business Intelligence review package we enable our customers to

measure the performance on Business Intelligence initiatives within their

organization. Based on your particular needs we can select the most relevant

parts of this review package and apply them on your BI initiative.

Information requests

This paper is a product of the Enterprise Information Management Practice of Logica. If you

require more information about our capabilities to support you please contact us.

Henk van Roekel Theo Meinsma

Principal Consultant Associate Director

T: +31 020 503 3164 T: +31 070 375 6711

E: [email protected] E: [email protected]

About the author

This paper is written by our Principal Consultant of Enterprise Information Management,

Henk van Roekel. Henk performs high level consultancy for our customers to support their

Business Intelligence, Data Integration and Data Management initiatives. Henk is a Certified

Business Intelligence Professional (mastery level) accredited by The Data Warehouse

Institute (TDWI) and a teacher of Business Intelligence courses at DNV-CIBIT.

Australia

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Denmark

Egypt

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Hong Kong

Hungary

India

Indonesia

Kuwait

Luxembourg

Malaysia

Morocco

Netherlands

Norway

Philippines

Poland

Portugal

Russia

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

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Technology

Whitepaper-Business Intelligence- empowering business