the analytics edge

I noticed a recent job posting for a Business Intelligence Analyst, and it struck me how far the BI industry is from where it needs to be.

‘This role will support business analytics for the rapidly growing business by conducting daily, weekly and monthly assessments required to support strategic level decisions by management.’

Sounds like a position that should exist in every company, doesn’t it? The way I read it, though, two things popped out — daily/weekly/monthly, and “strategic level decisions”. Those are two concepts that, when connected, expose the weaknesses of our current business intelligence technologies and have a direct impact on the ability of companies to staff this role.

First, I should explain that I believe strategic decisions - the kind that affect the way a business operates — do, in fact, happen daily, weekly and monthly. Challenges and opportunities do not wait for a quarterly strategic review meeting — they pop out of the woodwork and demand a reaction - instantly. Competitors act, you must react. Acquisitions happen, you must re-evaluate. Markets shift, you must adjust your investment plans. If nothing has become clear in the past few years, it is that your ability to react quickly determines your success in business.

Second, I also believe that information required for strategic decisions actually have a very short useful lifespan. When that unexpected event occurs, you suddenly need to know a few specific things about your own business that you likely weren’t paying much attention to. You need to evaluate scenarios that you did not consider before. You ask for reports you never needed before. But when the decisions are made, that information serves little purpose - maybe a little follow-up to make sure things turned out the way you hoped, but it is not required for operations. The reports languish.

This is real life. This is what Business Intelligence must support. These decisions, these reports, are crucial to company futures. That is why executives invest in BI. They want answers when they need them. IT groups know the scenarios all too well. Some refer to it as the report of the quarter; a high level executive suddenly demands a new report that is based on information no one has ‘cleansed’. A huge effort gets put into cleaning up the data and performing the analysis to deliver accurate information. Then they sit back and watch the report seemingly never get used and wonder why they bothered. A strategic decision was made – the most common one — to do nothing different, but those kind of decisions are invisible. 

So what does a BI solution require of the business analyst position?

‘Create Star Schema, develop cubes, KPIs and dashboards for Products Develop automated reports using SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Design data mining structure for management to create their own reports Analyse source data and determine fields required Data mapping’

Can you believe that some people actually debate whether IT matters? I thought we were supposed to have left the techie stuff behind years ago and computers were supposed to make it easier to do the things we needed? Sure doesn’t look like anyone told the BI vendors…

It’s time for change. We need a different approach to business analytics. A simpler way.