How to Build a Winning Business Intelligence Strategy

Data analytics make decision-making five times more quickly for organizations.

Of course, data analytics are only one piece of business intelligence. This wide-ranging concept allows organizations of all types and sizes to make better decisions every. And because leaders are continuing to look to this critical information, leveraging business intelligence software — something that has become synonymous with the idea itself — the BI market size is projected to grow to 33.3 billion USD by 2025, up more than $1 billion from 2020.

Business intelligence in a nutshell

Combining software with human expertise, BI is the process of turning raw, unstructured data into valuable insights. It allows organizations to take action and make informed decisions about specific and larger business initiatives.

As an umbrella term, BI incorporates:

• Data analytics
• Dashboards
• Reporting
• Summaries
• Data visualizations (graphs, charts, displays, and maps)
• Data mining
• Metrics and measurements

There are innumerable benefits to adopting a solid BI strategy, from being able to estimate project profitability to eliminating inefficiencies and redundancies to understanding employee and product performance. You will also be better equipped to cut costs, compare your business to your competitors, spot problems, uncover emerging market trends, and identify existing and future opportunities.

6 Steps for creating a BI strategy

1. Establish your goals and develop a roadmap. 

Your BI strategy begins with clear goals and objectives. What are you trying to achieve by implementing these systems? What are you looking to improve? In order to develop a cohesive plan to make change happen, you first need to know what success means to you.

Along with goals and benchmarks, consider your key performance indicators (KPIs), which are the measurements you will use to assess whether you have reached your objectives. Then, you should create a roadmap that will dictate the specific steps you and your team will take to establish a BI structure at your organization.

2. Collaborate with stakeholders.

Data is important for every individual in your organization. However, the insights gleaned from business intelligence systems are more relevant and critical to some employees and leaders than others. Make sure you have properly identified the stakeholders in your BI strategy. Remember that these individuals aren’t limited to executives within the organization — they could also be individual contributors (ICs) and middle managers, too.

Work together with these stakeholders to determine their needs, and collaborate to determine how to best support them and meet those needs. This will require managing expectations and prioritizing goals — you can’t do everything at once. Create a system for keeping stakeholders involved and up to date on your progress.

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3. Name a sponsor.

While you do need to identify stakeholders beyond the C-suite level at your organization, you also require buy-in from the executive leadership team so you have the proper support to carry out your strategy. That’s why it’s critical to name a sponsor.

A sponsor is a high-level employee at the organization, perhaps even the CEO. If you have a Chief Data Officer (CDO), this is probably the natural choice. Whoever you appoint as the sponsor will ensure that your BI strategy aligns and supports the overarching goals and mission of your company. 

The sponsor will also be the one to delegate a budget and resources to the project, so you’ll need to pitch the initiative to them and help them see why BI is necessary and how it will contribute to the organization, as well as apprise them of your efforts during your progress. 

4. Put your team together.

Working with your sponsor, your next step is to build your team. Naturally, you will want highly-skilled data and business analysts, but the BI strategy doesn’t end with these professionals. Some of the additional roles you should include are:

• Information technology (IT) specialists
• Project managers
• Enterprise architects
• Database administrators
• Systems managers

Carefully reflect on which employees and departments will best contribute to your strategy and support your overall vision and the skills they will bring to the table. You may want to look to freelance or outsourced professionals to fill in the gaps. Consider how your team will be structured, too, with clearly-defined roles, responsibilities, and governance.

5. Choose your software and tools

Carefully choosing the software you will leverage is, of course, a critical step, but it’s also important to remember that it doesn’t constitute your whole BI strategy. Instead, it should support your team and initiatives.

Work with your sponsor and team to find a comprehensive platform that incorporates all the features you need, such as the ability to generate profit and loss reports, present data visualizations, mine and accurate data with FlashCloud, and more. 

Prioritize the features that are most important to your BI needs and overall goals as an organization. 

6. Continue to assess your strategy

A strong BI strategy is never quite complete. You will need to continue to assess your strategy and performance, using your KPIs to measure the success of your initiatives. Use both qualitative and quantitative metrics to determine how you are performing. Ask your team members for feedback in addition to evaluating numerical data that shows you whether you’re realizing a strong ROI. 

In the future, keep measuring and tracking your business intelligence, recognizing that no business, no matter how successful, can rest on its laurels. A quality business is always striving for constant and continuous improvement.