Impact Research 1 Enabling Decision Making Through Business Intelligence: Preview of Report

Impact Research 2 Introduction to the Summary Report Table of Contents for “Enabling Decision Making Through Business Intelligence”: 1. Executive Summary 2. Research Methodology 3. What is Business Intelligence? 4. BI Adoption Drivers 5. Benefits of BI 6. BI Success 7. Plan 8. Implement 9. Operate 10. Key Conclusions 11. Case Studies 12. Glossary of BI Functionalities This summary report contains sample slides from the full Impact Research Report, “Enabling Decision Making Through Business Intelligence.” The actual report contains 75 slides and provides full analysis and best practices for BI, as illustrated in the table of contents below.

Impact Research 3 Business Intelligence represents a significant opportunity for the entire organization  Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of processes and technologies which provides consistent, accurate data and analytical tools to meet strategic and operational objectives.  The value of BI lies in its ability to manipulate data for the purpose of answering business questions in a timely fashion.  Although larger organizations are the biggest consumers of BI products, demand is growing in small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to secure a competitive edge.  Organizations that have already implemented BI have realized both substantial and immediate strategic and efficiency benefits. This report on Business Intelligence will: 1. Explain the concept of Business Intelligence. 2. Describe its key business and technology drivers and the adoption rates of key functionalities. 3. Detail the specific benefits and challenges realized in actual implementations. 4. Provide guidance on how to progress with planning and implementation. 5. Offer recommendations as to how to mitigate challenges and realize operational success. BI improves business decision making by facilitating all aspects of enterprise data and information. Enterprises should explore how BI can help expand strategic planning and operating capabilities. Executive Summary

Impact Research 4 Research Method

Impact Research 5 Research Method ►The Impact report study is based on the information collected from 201 different organizations. ►161 IT respondents completed a comprehensive survey and 40 engaged in a detailed interview process. ►All company sizes, major industry segments, revenue brackets, and BI statuses were represented. Research Method

Impact Research 6 What is Business Intelligence?

Impact Research 7 Business Intelligence (BI) is a set of processes and technologies  BI as a process is the consolidation, analysis, and application of business data to assist business decision making and yield genuine business value (e.g. by providing strategic insight).  BI as a software application consists of a variety of tools that facilitate BI processes by providing better data, more efficiently, to business decision makers (e.g. automated analysis and reporting; real-time snapshots of business performance; analytics). What is Business Intelligence? For definitions of functionalities, see the glossary of terms at the end of this document.

Impact Research 8 BI Adoption Drivers

Impact Research 9 Resolve data issues to maximize the chance for success with BI BI Adoption Drivers  Data is utilized in every aspect of the business. It plays an integral role in each of the other business objectives.  Only with quality data can BI offer organizations better operational insight and strategic planning advantages over the competition. Helpful Hint: Avoid the garbage-in, garbage-out data predicament by employing dedicated data quality staff throughout the BI project.

Impact Research 10 Benefits of BI

Impact Research 11 BI projects deliver strategic and efficiency benefits BI Benefits Strategic Benefits:  Improved decision making.  Deeper insight into data.  Improved customer service.  Improved accuracy of predictions.  Revenue generation.  Fraud detection and prevention. Efficiency Benefits:  Ease of access to information.  Increased employee productivity.  Faster process cycle time.  Streamlined daily workflows and processes. “Business Intelligence offers accurate information, in the format users want it in, quickly enough to use for making business decisions before the information is obsolete.” IT Director, Manufacturing With employees free from onerous manual intelligence gathering, they are able to focus wholly on strategic business initiatives. The benefits of BI are evident across the enterprise.

Impact Research 12 Plan Implement Operate 1. Project Planning 2. Obtaining Buy-in 3. Scope Definition 4. Resourcing 5. Vendor Selection 6. Cleanse, Pilot, Deploy 7. Gain User Adoption 8. Operations 9. Governance Plan, Implement & Operate Best practices for the planning, implementation and operational steps of BI are covered in the full report.

Impact Research 13 Sample Case Study

Impact Research 14 Sales and marketing success achieved through a successful BI deployment Business Intelligence Status Total Employees 1,500IT Staff17 IndustryWholesale/RetailBI Project Cost$200,000 Important Functionalities  Daily tracking of sales data (Dashboards)  End-user reporting Main Drivers  Increased efficiency and time savings for IT  Better and faster data for the marketing department Vendor  IBM Cognos OUTCOMEOVERALL EXPERIENCE Top Benefits  IT time savings (1/2 FTE)  Marketing team has improved decision making and is able to do more with less money The organization has seen an overhaul of its marketing strategy because of the improved data available through the BI solution and is now able to target market its most valuable customer groups. Cognos was chosen as the vendor due to its easy-to-use interface, while full support from the CFO and COO was integral in combating initial user resistance. IT led the BI initiative; however, if they were able to do it all again, they would fully engage the business during the requirements planning process to save from making changes post-deployment. Top Challenges  Data cleansing was time consuming  Users are not tech-savvy and initially resisted adoption “There’s a clear benefit that we have now. The (new) marketing plan has been more successful with the same number of advertising dollars. That reinforces that: hey, this data has helped us make better decisions.” Case Studies