Using Business Intelligence Well: Keys of High Performers
Companies that excel at business intelligence make the technology a differentiator both within and outside the organization.
CIO — Business intelligence may be one of the hottest information technology topics today, but that doesn't mean every company is equally adept at maximizing BI's value. IDC, in a Teradata-sponsored survey, categorized only about 200 of the 1,072 companies as excelling in their use of business intelligence. "Leaders" were defined as organizations that IDC (a sister company to CIO's publisher) scored as above average (four or five on a five-point scale) in their use of BI, datawarehousing and analytics, and that had a very high satisfaction with their current business intelligence solution.
The survey found a number of differences between companies that use BI well, and those whose use is merely average.
Business intelligence leaders are more adept than market-average companies at using real-time information.| Leaders | Market Average | |
|---|---|---|
| Availability of data for decision-making has increased significantly. | 67% | 33% |
| Ability to take action on real-time data is excellent. | 54% | 13% |
Leaders make integrating unstructured data into decision-making a priority.
| Leaders | Market Average | |
|---|---|---|
| Using unstructured data is a priority. | 53% | 21% |
Leaders are more likely to give BI-tool access to people outside the organization and to front-line staff.
| Leaders | Market Average | |
|---|---|---|
| Customers have access to business intelligence. | 47% | 24% |
| Front-line staff has access to business intelligence. | 78% | 54% |
Management in BI-excelling companies makes business intelligence a greater priority than does management in market-average companies.
| Leaders | Market Average | |
|---|---|---|
| Management has an excellent understanding of the need to invest in BI. | 66% | 15% |
| Business intelligence is the number-one IT initiative in our company. | 31% | 8% |
Leaders put a greater emphasis on measuring business intelligence's value.
| Leaders | Market Average | |
|---|---|---|
| Companies measure the ROI of business intelligence. | 88% | 58% |
Leaders rely heavily on BI.
| Leaders | Market Average | |
|---|---|---|
| My organization would experience an "immediate" negative impact if our business intelligence systems went down. | 23% | 10% |
