Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

U.S. Symposium/ITxpo Bill Hostmann

17–22 October 2004

Walt Disney World
Lake Buena Vista, Florida

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Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

The Mission of BI

Enterprise
Applications Insight
and Data Business value, for
example:
Business Improved planning and focus
Intelligence Optimised performance
Regulatory compliance
Enhanced customer links

BI's mission is the access to and analysis of

quantitative information sources to deliver insight —
as a means of aligning people and processes with the
organization's mission.

Companies often treat BI and data warehousing as after-the-fact, technical exercises to be addressed by
their IS organizations. This mind-set leads to implementations that lack significant business value and
force IS organizations into a constantly reactive pattern of chasing ever-changing business needs. In
contrast, companies that view BI as a strategic initiative, making it a catalyst for business change and
building it into plans for all key business initiatives, will gain substantial benefits from greater insight into
the business. Reaching the point where BI is positioned appropriately and executing on it in a sustained,
strategic way requires understanding the business requirements, careful planning and proper organization
alignment. The BI framework provides a model to align and integrate BI and achieve optimal results. At
the business level, strategic and operational business objectives are defined. This is the level in which the
true success or failure of a BI initiative is measured. The organizational level is where a consideration of
the available skills, levels of activism and culture in the organization is made and, then, aiming them at
sharing and reusing methods, concepts, data and, most importantly, insights. The functionality level
consists of the choices of BI applications, tools, platforms and technologies appropriate to meet the
business and organizational needs. The functionality level builds on the infrastructure, which consists of
the choices for the data warehouse, operational data store (ODS), extraction, transformation and loading
(ETL), as well as data integration tools and technology. Action Item: Use a BI framework to align BI
initiatives with business objectives and make strategic choices.
© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 1
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Strategic Planning Assumption: By 2004, only 20 percent of companies will use more than
50 percent of the total data they collect to gain competitive advantage (0.7 probability).

Insight Is Only Part of the Problem

Available
100
Customer
Data

75
Insight BI
Terabytes Capability
of Data
50
Execution Gap
Execution
Capability
25

0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Time

Growing integration of enterprise systems and the growth of automated channels (for example, the Web)
continue to outstrip the ability of companies to analyze and use the resulting insights. The growing number
of tools and implementations has begun to seriously address the issue of the knowledge gap, but has
generally ignored the problem of the execution gap.
Most companies take a top-down approach that looks at the data that is available and analyzes the data, but
then lacks the ability to effectively deploy the results of the analysis out into the customer interaction.
What is needed is a bottom-up approach to analytics, which begins by identifying the desired decision and
then works back to the analysis that will drive the decision, and the data that will drive the analysis.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 2
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Strategic Planning Assumptions

Skills, Not Technology, Inhibit Companies in

Business Intelligence

By 2006, demand for BI skills and staff will outweigh

supply by 2-to-1 (0.8 probability).

By 2007, companies will not be effective in meeting their strategic

business objectives if they do not invest in, organize and align their BI
skills to these business objectives (0.8 probability).

Through 2007, BI will be a key component in realizing new strategic

business initiatives (0.7 probability).

We see a new gap growing: the business intelligence (BI) skills gap. Companies are facing exploding data
sizes. If the amount of data that companies must capture doubles every year (and that is not an unlikely
situation), in 2006, it will be 32 times the size that it was in 2001. Even if this turns out to be half the
amount, it is another order of magnitude. Companies can no longer rely on "growing insight" alone. They
need to have the proper skills for understanding the data created by customer relationship management
(CRM) initiatives, in e-business ventures and in extending the management view to the whole value chain
instead of only to the company.
Sound analytic BI skills are needed to tell relevant from nonrelevant, and to interpret events and data in the
right way. The need for these skills should not to be underestimated. Large companies usually have a few
people with these skills, but these organizations typically do not use them well. As demand for these skills
increases dramatically, companies need to organize around BI and leverage skills, because the people
involved are too scarce, valuable and expensive to leave scattered around.
Action Item: Understand how to organize for BI, as well as how to leverage skills and investments.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 3
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Conclusions

Conclusions

There is return on investment (ROI) associated

with BI, but only if you organize for it.

Companies need to centralize their skills in a BI
competency center to break down
organizational barriers.

The BI competency center works closely with
the data warehouse team.

The BI competency center is crucial in helping
companies successfully embrace new business
paradigms.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 4
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI
Strategic Planning Assumptions: Through 2007, users will adopt a staggering number of
disparate and unrelated BI technologies, largely through applications, which will add to BI
fragmentation in organizations (0.7 probability). Through 2007, in Global 2000 companies,
the IS organization and end users will collaborate on BI strategy — including the selection
of technologies and applications — fostering consistency and favoring established BI and
enterprise resource planning players (0.3 probability).

The New BI Silos

Executives?
Resources

Operations
Marketing
Sales and

Finance
Human

Functionality

BI Applications: Strategic, operational, analytical

Q+R: Standard, canned, ad hoc

BI platforms, EBIS, data mining, IT-centric/user-driven

IT
Data warehouse ODS
Infrastructure
ETL Integration brokers

Conclusion: There is ROI associated with BI, but only if you organize for it.
With many BI applications on the way, there is a chance of seeing serious "BI spaghetti" — a range of
applications needing interfaces with each other. These applications need to copy metadata, causing a severe
overlap and production of conflicting results, or a portfolio showing serious holes. By not understanding
how to reach a balanced portfolio and a fitting BI infrastructure, companies will not succeed in enabling the
business with BI. If BI application spaghetti does occur or is likely to occur, chances are that the company
does not know how to organize for BI either. If each department is buying and deploying its applications,
then, for each application, there will be separate superusers that don't reference each other. Not only is that
suboptimal in use of time, it is also extremely damaging because the superusers start to make decisions
about which direction to take the BI application deployment, leading not to status quo, but to increasing
fragmentation. A BI framework is needed that explains how to lay out the pieces of the puzzle and how to
organize around BI. Only then can analytic processes and applications become aware of each other. This is
necessary because different analytic results influence each other. For example, accounting rules may
specify how to spread revenue over various periods of time. This affects the sales forecast, and sales
forecasting affects compensation planning, and so on.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 5
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

The Politics of Business Intelligence Case

Study: Latin American CPG

CEO: Sole
CFO:
Reliance
BI Myopia
on CFO

IT: Strategic
Vision
Political dynamics
force IT to focus BI
Divisional Mgmt.: tactically, aligned with
Active Defiance to IT political realities.

Conclusion: There is ROI associated with BI, but only if you organize for it.
Politics can provide a potent inhibitor to success with BI. In this case study of a Latin American consumer
packaged goods firm, the IT organization possessed a clear vision for strategic BI. It understood many of
the business needs and the technological challenges. However, the company had no real partner on the
business side of the house. Unlike many CFOs, this company's did not fully appreciate the value of a
comprehensive BI strategy, which was tied to a data warehouse and which included a broad set of business
health indicators. His own source of information was a home made application using static information,
which was used to manually populate PowerPoint slides. This is reminiscent of the executive information
systems (EIS) circa 1990. The CEO, while he understood that he needed some form of BI, relied entirely
upon the CFO, who was promoting the PowerPoint approach. Finally, divisional management, which
owned most of the data, actively refused to cooperate with IT. This uncooperative attitude was due to two
main factors: they feared losing the ability to "explain" the data to management, as well as losing "face
time" with key executives.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 6
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Strategic Imperative: Use a BI business value framework to align your initiatives and
create solid business cases for investments at every level of the framework including the
organizational level.

Organizing for BI Is Key to Delivering

Business Value
Maximize Minimize
Users Payback Risk

Strategy Alignment Liability

Globalization, Virtualization, Transparency

Organization Process Impact Silos

Skills, BI Competency Performance Mgmt,
Center Methodology

Applications & Functionality Effectiveness Redundancy

BI Suites, BI Platforms, Reporting
Strategic / Operational / Analytical Applications

Infrastructure Efficiency Rigidity

Data Warehouse, ODS, ETL,
Data Quality, Metadata
BI Business Value Drivers
Legacy
ERP CRM SCM
& Other

Conclusion: There is ROI associated with BI, but only if you organize for it.
BI is a business process unto its own with a methodology that involves users from several organizations (IT
resources, business resources, as well as significant and constant involvement by business personnel). These
users must have in-depth skills in the business processes, BI and change management and must act together
in a coordinated fashion to create an evolution of the business itself. Key success factors at the
organizational level include:1) A well-defined understanding of current processes and associated
applications that are required to be optimized in order to deliver improvements in business value. 2) A
formal project team comprising members of the business, analysts and IT working together to implement a
BI methodology and executing a development plan to realize improvements in business processes. The
organizational structure to drive the plan and methodology is typically in the form of a BI Competency
Center. 3) Investments in developing the needed BI skills as well as skills and awareness in change and
performance management.
The alternative to well-orchestrated, staffed and organized BI initiatives is silos of skills, methodologies
and data. The result is data inconsistencies and inaccuracies plus multiple competing concerns driving
change.
Action Item: Use the BI value framework to align your BI initiatives and define solid business cases.
© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 7
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Strategic Planning Assumption: By 2006, large companies will need three times as many
BI staff as they did in 2002 (0.7 probability).

Organize Skills in a BI Competency Center

Business
Skills
Link to Prioritize
corporate Alter and set
strategy processes expectations

Develop decision Establish

alternatives requirements

Interpret Monitor
Summarize results results Implement
and analyze
BI CC changes

Discover and Identify data Store, maintain,

explore integrate data
Extract
data
Analytic Skills IT Skills

Conclusion: Companies need to centralize their skills in a BI competency center to break

down organizational barriers.
By 2006, companies will need three times the BI staff they had in 2002. At the same time, demand will
outweigh supply two-to-one. Companies should centralize their BI skills into a BI competency center, as
their BI skills are too scarce, valuable and expensive to leave scattered throughout the organization. They
need to realize that, by leveraging the skills of the BI staff strategically, they can retain these skills and
attract new skills from the market. This makes BI a hot career choice.
The BI competency center has three tasks: 1) guide the users in self-service with regard to repetitive BI
tasks (such as management reporting and recurring simple analysis), 2) perform ad hoc and difficult
analysis themselves (until they become repetitive), and 3) prevent duplication of effort by overseeing BI
initiatives throughout the company.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 8
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

BI Competency Center Organization by

Function — A Real Example
BI Competency
Center

Education/ BI Program Data Advanced

Support Mgmt. Stewardship Analytics

Training
development Intake and Business
Data Prep
and Prioritization Metadata
implementation

Ad Hoc End- Ad Hoc and Quality

Data Mining
User Support Prototyping Assurance

Communication/
Statistical
Newsletters/ Requirements
Modeling
User Groups

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permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 9
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI
Strategic Imperative: A successful data warehouse is the result of a well-defined and
executed methodology. Selecting tools is one step within the methodology, and it’s not
the first step.

The BI Project Is Managed Using a

Well-Defined Methodology

7. Develop 6. Access,
decision monitor,
alternatives analyze
facts
1. Definition
8. Share Consume
and
2. Data
collaborate 5. Discovery
identification
and
and
exploration
Construct inventory
9. Effect
change

4. Develop, 3. Tool
implement, evaluation/
train selection

Conclusion: Companies need to centralize their skills in a BI competency center to break

down organizational barriers.
Before delving into the specifics of selecting tools, it's necessary to put the tool selection process into the
context of an overall BI project methodology. The BI methodology ties together the phases, steps, roles and
skills required to successfully develop, deploy and evolve a data warehouse and BI project. Selecting the
right tools is just one step within the methodology. The project team, including those driving the tool
selection process, need to understand the overall methodology and how each other's steps/roles interrelate.
Action Item: Use a BI implementation methodology to plan the project.

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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 10
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Methodology Used to Coordinate

Roles and Responsibilities
Primary Secondary Tertiary

BI CC and
Development

1. Definition
Users
2. Data ID and Prep IT BI CC Users
3. Tool Evaluation and BI CC Users and IT
Selection
4. Develop, Implement, IT Users and Tech
Train Support
5. Discovery and Exploration Users and IT
BI CC
Deployment

6. Access, Monitor, Analyze Users Tech Support BI CC

7. Develop Decision Users Tech Support BI CC

8. Share and Collaborate Users Tech Support BI CC

9. Effect Change Users BI CC

Conclusion: The BI competency center works closely with the data warehouse team.
The BI Competency needs to work with several other groups within the organization as a project moves
from development to deployment. The roles of these additional groups and their responsibilities and time
commitments need to be mapped out in advance. As much as everyone would like to see a BI project
succeed, sometimes the crush of day-to-day work prevents them from delivering on "extra" responsibilities
in a timely fashion. So while there isn't a direct reporting relationship between the groups, the deliverables
from those involved need to be spelled out in their performance plans in order to achieve accountability.
Action Item: Use the Methodology to orchestrate the roles and commitments required to successfully
leverage the work of the BI competency center.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 11
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Tactical Guideline: The BI competency center should serve different groups of users in
different ways.

The Scope of Governance Depends on

Project Scope

Degree of Governance by BI Competency Center

0% 100%

Special-purpose Departmental BI Cross-functional Corporate BI

BI applications applications BI applications applications
"Framework and Multiple
standards" departments and
data sources

Conclusion: Companies need to centralize their skills in a BI competency center to break

down organizational barriers.
The BI competency center has several tasks and user groups to serve, including itself. The requirements of
user groups may conflict. Setting up standard reports can work for rank-and-file data consumers, but it
would not suffice for the BI competency center because it consists of analysts who need more user control
and depth. When examining user profiles, it is remarkable that the executive's BI requirements are not
strategic. However, this makes sense, because it is the added value of the analysts to apply that strategic
focus to corporate data. The BI competency center must understand the needs of different user groups and
not take itself as the basis (or the opposite, which would be worse — denying insightful analysis to the
business, "because the users wouldn’t know how to interpret the data"). In supporting corporate BI
applications that set the analytic framework (for example, around customer segmentation), the BI
competency center has 100 percent governance. Uniform definitions, visualization and distribution are
crucial. In departmental applications, the BI competency center has a reference role, assessing the extent to
which departmental plans fit into the overall BI framework with which they need to comply. (There may be
specialist applications over which the BI competency center has no governance.) Finally, the BI
competency center may be involved as a consultant, where the most the BI competency center can do is
seek leverage with the rest of the organization.
© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 12
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Strategic Imperative: There is no single best place in which to house the BI competency
center.

Where to Place the BI Competency Center?

Plan B:
Report to the CFO
(only if matured from
financial control to
Plan A: management control)
Report to the business
(in a collaborative CFO
environment)
Core business

CIO
Plan C:
Report to the CIO
(if IS organization has the
only overviewing role)

Conclusion: Companies need to centralize their skills in a BI competency center to break

down organizational barriers.
Determining where to house the BI competency center is a difficult issue. The best solution is to house it as
close to the core business as possible. In a marketing-driven organization, that could be under the chief
marketing officer; in a manufacturing organization, it could be under the chief operating officer. Although
optimal from a business perspective, it raises some issues. The key point of the BI competency center is that
it is only effective when it has a cross-functional reach. In many corporate cultures, housing it in a certain
part of the organization inhibits other parts of the company from using it. That would be a serious mistake.
The other option is to place the BI competency center under the CFO, as the financial function within an
company spans all business areas. This will only work when the CFO understands the situation — where
the financial function has matured from financial accounting to management accounting, and from financial
control to management control. If the accountants still think all of the information one could possibly want
is to be found in the general ledger, it won’t work. As a last resort, the BI competency center could report
into the CIO. This is not optimal from a business point of view, but, with the right skills and mind-set of the
organization, it might be the only alternative.
Action Item: Determine the best place to house the BI competency center. This may be less obvious than it
looks.
© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 13
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Strategic Imperative: A subscription-based funding model reduces barriers to leveraging

the BI competency center, while acknowledging the added value of the center.

Funding the BI Competency Center

Overhead Billing queries, activities ...

No barrier of using BI
"Fair" share of costs, heavy
competency center services users pay more

No indication of economic value
Creating a barrier for use

Subscription-based Service-based

Reducing barriers for use
“Venture" funding to start up

Understanding economic
Fixed price bid and annual

value support

Conclusion: Companies need to centralize their skills in a BI competency center to break

down organizational barriers.
By its nature, the BI competency center has a cross-functional role, making it difficult to book all costs to a
single cost center. In many cases, the BI competency center sponsor views the costs as overheads. That
means there is no barrier for various departments to use the services, but there is also no indication of
economic value. The added value may not be fully appreciated, and the BI competency center could
become the department to which ill-conceived questions and futile report requests are "outsourced." This is
not optimal.
As a second step in the maturity of the BI competency center, an internal billing system may be used. The
user is charged with a fee, per activity (whether it is a project or an ad hoc analysis). There are some
advantages, because heavy as well as light users get their fair share of costs. There can be limitations, too,
with users being charged for trying to leverage the investment in the BI competency center. Some-mature
BI competency centers have started to adopt subscription-based billing models. By differentiating the user
profiles, each gets its fair share of the costs. Others have used an internal "services-based" model which
looks similar to an external service provider model, but brings with it an intimate understanding of the
business objectives and organizational insights. This model requires an initial sponsor to jump start it, a
proven track record of success and well-defined service-level agreements.
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permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 14
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Definition: Collaborative applications allow participants in the value chain to collaborate

interactively in the business process and remove the need for "expert" intervention by
"expert" staff.

The Impact of Collaborative BI Applications

The "expert" bottleneck
Users

Finance

Users

Finance

Users The collaborative

value chain

Users

Conclusion: The BI competency center is crucial in helping companies successfully

embrace new business paradigms.
Many business processes rely on the finance department to be the "expert" staff. For example, most
budgeting systems require draft budgets to be routed to budget controllers, to consolidate results for senior
management review. Changes are then passed back to the budget controller, to be distributed back to the
budget managers. Thus, finance plays the "expert" role, but it creates a bottleneck, preventing direct
interaction between participants in the business process. Collaborative applications will remove this
bottleneck by delivering direct collaboration between all participants in the value chain. A collaborative
budgeting application will:
• Access key performance indicators (KPIs) from strategic objectives (for example, the balanced
scorecard)
• Allow budget managers and senior managers to build and model budgets interactively
• Immediately assess the budget against KPIs
This allows finance to be both an advisor and a consultant to the business, adding value, rather than creating
a bottleneck. Collaborative applications are emerging in many finance process areas, including budgeting
and planning, sales forecasting and working capital management.
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permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
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05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 15
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Definition: The BI competency center is crucial in helping companies successfully

embrace new business paradigms.

Corporate Performance Management and the

BICC: Manage and Integrate the Components

Processes Metrics

Strategy formulation
Financial and nonfinancial

Budgeting and forecasting
Short term and long term

Goal setting
Quantitative and qualitative

Performance feedback
Lagging and leading

Business activity monitoring
Aligned
Methodologies

Balanced scorecard Strategic

European Foundation for
Quality Management BI applications

Value-based management/ Operational
economic-value added

Activity-based costing Analytic

Intangible asset management

Conclusion: The BI competency center is crucial in helping companies successfully

embrace new business paradigms.
Corporate performance management (CPM), in its broadest sense, is much more than a set of software. It
includes the processes used to manage corporate performance (such as strategy formulation, budgeting and
forecasting), the methodologies that may drive some of the processes (such as the balanced scorecard or
value-based management) and the metrics used to measure performance against strategic and operational
performance goals.
There is no single or correct combination of processes, methodologies and metrics. These are starting to
converge in CPM applications suites, which embody the functionality of various processes and link the
processes to a number of methodologies. The BI competency center will work with users and managers to
choose the right combination of functionality required in a CPM suite. The center will be key in defining
the range of processes and methodologies that work together in an integrated manner, using a combination
of user-defined and pre-defined metrics to meet strategic and business objectives.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
Bill Hostmann
or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the
selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 16
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Strategic Imperative: Leading companies will create and evolve business-to-business

relationships as well as improved corporate transparency with BI.

Think Outside the Company

Government
Government
Competitors
Competitors Legal reporting Shareholders
Shareholders
Benchmarking Operational
insight Profit reporting
Back-office economy of scale
analysis Shareholder loyalty

Supply chain optimization Loyalty instrument

Planning BI is the product
Marketplace
analysis Empowerment
Sales force automation
Customers
Customers
Suppliers
Suppliers
Employees
Employees

Conclusion: The BI competency center is crucial in helping companies successfully

embrace new business paradigms.
Companies are under pressure to "open up," to become more transparent. Increasingly, shareholders,
authorities and customers demand to know how the company operates, and disclosure of performance data
is not a chore — it is an opportunity to create competitive advantage. Visionary companies will empower
employees, disclose BI applications to comply with new regulatory reporting requirements and more tightly
integrate with their partners and customers. BI has become a customer service tool. BI can give the
customer access to relevant parts of the company's management information; therefore, information
becomes a service concept. Many companies have allowed this access either to enhance customer loyalty or
because it has become a necessity in their markets. In some vertical industries, even competitors share
information to benchmark their noncompetitive processes. In the pharmaceutical market, this process is
fully commercialized, which is also sure to happen in vertical industries, such as telecommunications (as
this area also has comparable services and is highly regulatory).
Action Item: Extend the role of the BI competency center to create competitive advantage outside of the
company and improve transparency of the organization.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
Bill Hostmann
or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the
selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 17
Tutorial: How to Organize for Success in BI

Recommendations
• Tomorrow — Take an inventory of the BI skills you have and where they are in the
organization.
• Next — Define the business objectives that BI competency centers will meet and the
right executives to report to.
• Identify the appropriate funding and organizational strategy.
• Create a role for the BI competency center to be a strategic leader in embracing new
business paradigms.
• The BI competency center is not the only competency center, and should actively
collaborate and share resources with the other competency centers.

© 2004 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written
permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims
all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions
Bill Hostmann
or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the
selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
05D, SYM14, 1004, AE Page 18
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