In this guide, you’ll learn how to develop and implement a business intelligence strategy in your business. You’ll also learn why it’s important.
What is a business intelligence strategy?
A business intelligence (BI) strategy is the framework for using your business data, which can come from anywhere in your company. An effective BI strategy should include your people, processes and technology.
Why is a business intelligence strategy useful?
A business intelligence strategy lets you use your data to make better decisions. It can help you understand your performance and spot trends and anomalies.
Benefits of implementing a business intelligence strategy
Having a business intelligence strategy and implementing BI reporting may enable:
Faster and more informed decision-making: Instead of asking your IT team for reports, you slice and dice the data to answer your questions.
Better productivity: Reports and visualisations show how well your strategy is working so that you can make changes to improve productivity.
Improved return on investment: See data in real-time to track performance and make changes to maximise financial return.
Risk mitigation. Financial forecasting lets you compare different business strategies.
Challenges of implementing a business intelligence strategy
The challenges of implementing a business intelligence strategy include:
Data quality and integration: Having high-quality and complete data is essential to effective business intelligence. If you run your business using multiple disconnected apps, you won’t get the insights you’re looking for.
Data security and governance: Protect data security and meet governance obligations by complying with internal and external regulations.
User adoption and training: Training your team on using business intelligence software can take some time.
Infrastructure scalability: Some BI tools are harder to scale than others.
Tip: Use MYOB Acumatica, a complete cloud ERP solution. It combines data from across your business with built-in reporting and business intelligence capabilities. From your customisable, user-friendly dashboard, you can analyse trends in real-time, find customer insights and dig into product turnover.
The intuitive sales, purchase, banking and business reports also give you a detailed snapshot of your organisation so you can make better, faster decisions. If you need even more detailed reporting, choose from our BI integrations.
12 steps to create and implement a business intelligence strategy
Follow these 12 steps to create and implement a business intelligence strategy:
1. Choose executive sponsorship
Choose an executive sponsor for the project. This leader will be responsible for strategy, compliance and getting buy-in from across the business.
2. Define your business intelligence goals and objectives
Define your business intelligence goals and objectives. These could include cost-cutting, reducing inefficiencies or identifying new opportunities.
3. Identify and involve key stakeholders
Identify and involve key stakeholders from the start. This group should include anyone who’ll be affected by the BI strategy.
4. Set your business intelligence scope
Set your business intelligence scope based on your business size, complexity and BI goals.
5. Assemble your business intelligence team
Assemble the business intelligence team to oversee quality and governance. The team should include representatives from all business functions.
6. Choose your BI platform and infrastructure
Choose the BI platform and infrastructure that delivers on your BI goals and business needs. It should also integrate with your technology stack. Compare the features and capabilities you need now, but consider your organisation’s future state – will the tool scale with you?
7. Develop your business intelligence roadmap
Develop your business intelligence roadmap to show how to implement the strategy. Make sure to include due dates for each step.
8. Document your business intelligence strategy
Documenting your business intelligence strategy makes things clear for all stakeholders. It can also protect against scope creep, which can cause timelines and budgets to blow out.
9. Establish a business intelligence governance process
Establishing a business intelligence governance process will guide how you manage your information systems.
10. Identify key performance indicators (KPIs)
Identify KPIs that align with business goals so you can easily track the success of your BI strategy.
11. Track the return on investment (ROI) of your BI strategy
Track the ROI of your BI strategy regularly — this helps you prove effectiveness, argue for more resources and tweak inefficient areas.
12. Regularly review your business intelligence strategy
Regularly review your business intelligence strategy so that it evolves along with your business objectives and needs.
Tip: Look at business intelligence as part of your broader enterprise software strategy.
MYOB Acumatica brings all your business data together on one platform, offering comprehensive BI and reporting tools that are fully customisable.
Tailor the user-friendly dashboard to visualise just the data you need at a glance. Browse real-time data to uncover actionable insights in just a few clicks. You can also create templates for commonly-used reports.
MYOB Acumatica also offers industry editions for construction, manufacturing, distribution and field services, so you get the insights that are most useful to you.
Business intelligence strategy FAQs
What is an example of business intelligence being used?
Predictive modelling is an example of using business intelligence, which lets you model different scenarios before taking action.
What are the key elements of a business intelligence strategy?
The key elements of a business intelligence strategy are people, processes and technology. Your BI strategy should deliver to the needs and constraints of all three.
What are the most popular business intelligence tools?
There are many popular business intelligence tools. Some are built into larger ERP platforms, while others are standalone apps that can be integrated with other software.
Power your business intelligence
Having a business intelligence strategy is important to getting value from your data. However, it’s worth thinking about business intelligence software in the context of your broader business management platform requirements.
With MYOB Acumatica, you’ll have comprehensive BI and reporting tools, built into your enterprise resource planning system. With all your data in one place, you can gain insights across your business. The platform’s interactive dashboards and intuitive reports streamline workflows and encourage business-wide collaboration. You can also extend your platform with a range of specialist BI apps, if required. Get in touch to set up a demo.
Disclaimer: Information provided in this article is of a general nature and does not consider your personal situation. It does not constitute legal, financial, or other professional advice and should not be relied upon as a statement of law, policy or advice. You should consider whether this information is appropriate to your needs and, if necessary, seek independent advice. This information is only accurate at the time of publication. Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of the information contained on this webpage, MYOB disclaims, to the extent permitted by law, all liability for the information contained on this webpage or any loss or damage suffered by any person directly or indirectly through relying on this information.