Transitioning Toward Operational Business Intelligence

This month, DM Review published a nice article entitled Transitioning Toward Operational Business Intelligence, written by Lyndsay Wise. She talks about why the concept of operational BI is becoming more realistic with the shift in the BI scenario, considering the BI expansion in the organizations and an approach to apply the concept of BI for the masses.

She considers that mass deployments and embedding BI within daily operational processes are becoming the goals of many organizations that are ready to move beyond online analytical processing (OLAP) and ad hoc reporting. Operational BI is being pushed on the market to increase the overall use of BI within the organization.

Once BI is implemented within the organization, various departments begin to see the benefits of its use. This coupled with an existing framework and general architecture creates an environment where BI can be expanded upon without initial rework. By expanding data sharing and collaborative efforts across the organization, there exists the ability to integrate BI use into existing processes and to identify where BI might fit within overall business processes in general.

With more end users accessing BI applications and BI’s extended reach toward multiple decision-makers, organizations begin to take a more forward looking approach to BI and, more importantly, to organization-wide decision-making. When looking at a BI for the masses approach, the question becomes “What is the best manner to deploy this type of expansion?” The problem with many traditional BI solutions is the inability to use them without training and some general technical knowledge, for instance understanding how different sets of information interrelate.

I think the use of operational BI in the companies is an interesting approach for spreading the use of BI throughout the organization.