BI Competency Centers: The Brain of Your BI Strategy

Make the most of your BI investment by centralizing expert resources

by Kelly LeVoyer

After investing in business intelligence (BI) solutions, wouldn't you do everything possible to ensure that your commitment to BI gets results? From strategic concerns like developing and updating your long-term BI vision to tactical issues like keeping up with software enhancements and providing user training, many organizations are developing BI Competency Centers to be the brain of their BI efforts.

"If structured effectively, a BI Competency Center can ensure that all the parts of an organization are moving forward together in a healthy, efficient way," explains SAS International professional services programs manager Dagmar Bräutigam.

While many of today's software vendors tout services, technologies and methodologies for competency centers, many are narrow in focus. The BI Competency Center is not just a replacement for existing help desks addressing product issues and periodically helping acquire new software. The BI Competency Center has to be about ensuring that the organization leverages its BI investment by helping users use BI technology in decision making.

"While no single strategy fits all companies, SAS takes a much more holistic approach to competency centers. We believe they must address not only the tactics of how BI is maintained and deployed throughout an organization, but even more importantly, they must promote a long-term, sustainable information delivery strategy and ensure the technology is used throughout the organization to support the business," says Bräutigam.

Gartner Research Vice President Frank Buytendijk adds, "Organizations that are successful with BI realize that information is a critical resource and have created a culture in which information is shared and leveraged. Only then can there be true performance accountability."

So exactly what does a BI Competency Center do? While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, a BI Competency Center provides a central location for driving and supporting a company's overall information delivery strategy. It coordinates and complements an organization's existing efforts, while reducing redundancy and increasing effectiveness. This centralization ensures that information and best practices are shared through the entire organization so that everyone can benefit from successes and lessons learned.

Other functions that a BI Competency Center may address include:

• Data stewardship – metadata management, data standards, data quality, data architecture.
• Data acquisition – ETL and data store development, testing and maintenance.
• BI delivery – developing and distributing information to decision makers.
• Advanced analytics – data mining, statistical modeling, optimization, text mining, forecasting.
• Vendor contracts management – user licenses, administration, updates and project teams.
• Support – answering user questions.
• Training – for business users and project teams.

BI strategy: Make sure you're seeing the forest
The most valuable BI Competency Center implementations are designed to balance the tactical needs of today with a strategy and vision for the future. The BI Competency Center, therefore, must define the BI strategy if one is not yet defined. Common questions to be answered include:

• What is the structure of your information flow and data sources? Is data easy to access? Does it reside in several places? Who knows where to find the information? Are you using consistent business rules?
• Who ensures that each business decision taken is backed up by the correct information?
• Who analyzes information needs, and who produces and executes a BI strategy to fulfill them?
• How do you prioritize, conduct and monitor business intelligence projects?
• Have you developed and maintained BI standards regarding methodologies, definitions, processes, tools and technologies that are used by the entire organization?

Staying competitive and meeting the pressure of regulatory compliance requirements demand that information sources and business and analytic intelligence be accessible to a growing number of information consumers across the enterprise and beyond. So investing in an information infrastructure is well worth the effort.

A leading insurance company in South Africa decided to implement an enterprisewide management information system. In the process, the company realized it would need a structure that would provide a sustainable environment for driving the use of business intelligence; to do so, it chose SAS as the end-to-end provider. To deliver BI information to approximately 700 users, it decided the best approach was to develop a BI Competency Center, in collaboration with SAS and consulting partner KPMG. "The collaboration between SAS and KPMG produced a complete solution that addressed people, process, infrastructure and culture and provided the foundation for the establishment of a BI Competency Center that ensured ongoing value to the customer," says Wayne Brider, manager of advanced technologies with EOH KPMG Consulting.

Dr. Stefanie Gerlach, senior program consultant for professional services programs at SAS, emphasizes: "It is vital that the competency center has executive sponsorship. The aim must be to align business intelligence goals across various functional areas, in support of the company strategy."

Ongoing support ensures success
The development and deployment of the BI Competency Center is just the beginning. The ongoing services that the BI Competency Center offers users, as well as the services it receives from technology vendors, help create a well-rounded culture of – and reputation for – innovation.

Aiman Zeid, SAS Americas principal BI consultant adds, "SAS is launching a global initiative to advocate the importance of a BI Competency Center. Our goal is to provide our customers with the technology, services and resources to develop and own their BI Competency Center. SAS customers will soon have access to a comprehensive framework of services provided by SAS Consulting and the SAS partner community. This collective effort combines SAS' leading BI technology and services with the expertise of SAS partners."

SAS also provides a full range of technical support, training, documentation and user group services that can help complete the BI Competency Center as a one-stop shop for business intelligence.

Bio: Kelly LeVoyer is editorial director of sascom magazine.