TDWI Research has released its newest Best Practices Report, Accelerating the Path to Value with Business Intelligence and Analytics. Decisions are riding on the timeliness and quality of analytics; it’s no wonder that business stakeholders are impatient with delays in reports, analysis, and access to diverse data. This original, survey-based report examines multiple factors impacting an enterprise’s ability to quickly derive greater value from data and analytics, including organizational issues, practices, and development methods that are often just as important as keeping pace with technological innovation.
TDWI research uncovered a number of important issues that can determine the level of “downstream” value delivered by BI and analytics, including data quality and consistency, strong project leadership, and the ability for users to prepare data without IT.
David Stodder, senior director of TDWI Research for business intelligence, explains, “Executives, managers, and frontline personnel fear that decisions based on old and incomplete data or formulated using slow, outmoded, and limited reporting functionality will be bad decisions. A deficient information supply chain hinders quick responses to shifting situations and increases exposure to financial and regulatory risk—putting a business at a competitive disadvantage. Stakeholders are demanding better access to data, faster development of business intelligence (BI) and analytics applications, and agile solutions in sync with requirements.”
Stodder adds that business stakeholders also want a higher return on investment (ROI) in BI, analytics, and data management. They don’t question the power of information. Decision makers want more information sooner.
Report Highlights
This comprehensive report reveals:
- Only a third (35 percent) of organizations say their newest BI and analytics projects are delivering their intended business value at a faster pace than a year ago. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) say the pace has become slower.
- Among the most significant obstacles enterprises face in deriving value from BI and analytics are poorly defined project scope, lack of skilled personnel, and poor prioritization of multiple projects.
- Over half (53 percent) of organizations support spending more than the cost of the cheapest solutions to provide technologies or cloud-based services needed to reduce time to value for their BI and analytics projects, but 41 percent said support was somewhat or very weak.
- To reduce time to value by half, one-third of enterprises believe they would have to increase their project budget by 10 to 25 percent ; 17 percent thought it would take an increase of 25 to 50 percent. Seven percent thought their project budget might have to double.
- Time to value varies widely. For example, 15 percent of respondents say projects in their enterprise can begin providing value to the business in two weeks or less; 17 percent say value can be enjoyed in less than a month. However, 16 percent require two to three months and 11 percent can deliver in less than four months. Users in 12 percent of responding companies must wait from four to six months for value, and 5 percent must wait as long as a year.
Stodder reveals the strategies organizations use to reduce time to value, including pre-project planning to ensure alignment with corporate objectives, identifying quantifiable goals and ways to measure value, learning what business decisions will be based on the BI or analytics system, and scheduling clear-cut deliverables in order from easiest to most difficult .
In addition, Stodder is the chair of the TDWI Leadership Summit this August 7-8 in Anaheim, CA. During the Summit, Stodder will discuss his research findings along with experiences of other industry leaders and data and analytics professionals. The Summit focuses on best practices and case studies that span both the business and technical requirements for successful data projects. More information about the Leadership Summit is available at https://tdwi.org/events/leadership-summits/anaheim.aspx.
This research was sponsored by Cambridge Semantics, Inc., Looker, Modemetric, Inc., SAP, SAS, Tableau Software, Unifi, and Zoomdata, Inc.
David Stodder is senior director of TDWI Research for business intelligence. He focuses on providing research-based insight and best practices for organizations implementing BI, analytics, performance management, data discovery, data visualization, and related technologies and methods. He is the author of TDWI Best Practices Reports and Checklist Reports on data discovery, data visualization, customer analytics in the age of social media, BI/DW agility, mobile BI, and information management. He has chaired TDWI conferences on BI agility and big data analytics. Stodder has provided thought leadership on BI, information management, and IT management for over two decades. He has served as vice president and research director with Ventana Research, and he was the founding chief editor of Intelligent Enterprise, where he served as editorial director for nine years. You can reach him at dstodder@tdwi.org, @dbstodder on Twitter, and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/ davidstodder.
About TDWI
For 20 years, TDWI has provided individuals and teams with a comprehensive portfolio of business and technical education and research about all things data. The in-depth, best-practices-based knowledge TDWI offers can be quickly applied to develop world-class talent across your organization’s business and IT functions to enhance analytical, data-driven decision making and performance. TDWI advances the art and science of realizing business value from data by providing an objective forum where industry experts, solution providers, and practitioners can explore and enhance data competencies, practices, and technologies. TDWI offers six major conferences as well as topical seminars, onsite education, membership, certification, live webinars, resource-filled publications, industry news, and in-depth research. See tdwi.org or follow us on Twitter @TDWI.
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