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07 Jun 2024

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10 Steps for Successful Business Intelligence Implementation

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Rishabh Software guide you through BI implementation by outlining its key steps, challenges with their solutions to help you make better business decisions.

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Imagine an online shoe store facing a critical choice: determining which shoe styles to stock for the upcoming holiday season. Without accurate data insights, the store might base its decision on assumptions or mere intuition. But not everyone has enough experience to make a good guess. Or we can say most people are not lucky enough to make correct guesses in critical situations. This is where BI can seriously help any kind of business especially Ecommerce businesses.

BI empowers e-commerce players to use the power of data for strategic planning, improved customer experiences, and enhanced operational efficiency. In this article, we will guide you to a successful business intelligence implementation for your e-commerce business. And we provided many examples to make things more clear for you.

Let's start by answering why business intelligence is needed.

Why do E-Commerce Players Need Business Intelligence Implementation?

It's important to understand why e-commerce businesses need a successful business intelligence implementation before using it. E-commerce relies heavily on data, from sales figures and customer behavior to inventory management and market trends. Implementing BI allows e-commerce businesses to turn this data into actionable insights, enabling smarter decision-making and better business outcomes.

In the "What is Business Intelligence" article we explained what is business intelligence and mentioned the benefits of it. If you did not read it yet, go and read it now.

Imagine you're the owner of " ShoeEx " a thriving online store that specializes in selling a wide range of footwear, from athletic sneakers to formal dress shoes. Here's why this and similar online stores can greatly benefit from business intelligence implementation:
Understanding Customer Behavior
By analyzing purchase patterns, browsing history, and click-through rates, ShoeEx can understand which shoe styles are trending, which products customers are abandoning in their carts, and what factors influence purchasing decisions.

This can result in better conversion rates in sales funneland marketing funnel.
Personalized Shopping Experience
By utilizing data on past purchases and the browsing behavior of each customer, ShoeEx can recommend shoes that align with each customer's style and preferences. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also increases the likelihood of repeat purchases and brand loyalty.

Using valid intelligence, E-commerce businesses can use remarketing and cross-selling techniques to solidify their relationships with customers and increase their sales.
Inventory Management and Demand Forecasting
Effective inventory management is crucial for any online store. Business Intelligence tools can analyze historical sales data, seasonal trends, and market fluctuations to predict future demand for specific shoe styles. This allows ShoeEx to reduce and ensure that the right shoes are available at the right time overstocking or understocking.
Pricing and Promotion Strategies
Business intelligence implementation empowers ShoeEx to set competitive and profitable pricing. By analyzing competitor prices, historical sales data, and customer responsiveness to discounts, ShoeEx can develop pricing strategies that attract customers while maintaining healthy profit margins.
Data-Driven Marketing
With the help of business intelligence implementation, the store can analyze the effectiveness of various marketing channels, such as social media ads, email campaigns, and influencer collaborations. Marketing automation can also benefit from this data. This will let ShoeEx allocate its budget to the most impactful marketing strategies and optimize its return on investment.

Business Intelligence Implementation Strategy

A successful business intelligence implementation begins with a well-thought-out strategy. This strategy should align with your business goals and encompass the scope, timeline, budget, and expected outcomes of the implementation. The BI strategy should include the scope of the project, a realistic timeline, a budget, and the expected outcomes.

If you simply follow the provided steps, you successfully created your business intelligence strategy.

Business Intelligence Implementation in 12 Steps

Implementing business Intelligence in your e-commerce business can be challenging. If this is the first time that BI is going to be used in your business, you need a proper plan. Here we tried to give you a clear step-by-step guideline to Implement BI in your e-commerce business. Just follow the steps and you will see the results of using data in your business sooner than you think.

1. Analyze the Current State

Before diving into the business intelligence implementation process, it's essential to understand where your organization stands in terms of data utilization and strategic goals. Try to answer these 3 questions:
1- How much do we use data now?
Assess your current data utilization practices. Identify how data is collected, stored, and utilized across departments.
2- How much data do we have access to?
Evaluate the data sources available to your business. Determine the quality, quantity, and relevance of the data.
3- What are the main goals of implementing data?
Define the specific objectives of integrating BI, whether it's improving sales forecasting, enhancing customer segmentation, or optimizing inventory management.

2. Gather a Team

Establish a project team including data experts and stakeholders. Cross-functional collaboration ensures that the business intelligence implementation addresses the needs of different departments and business functions.

3. Identify Needs

Work closely with department heads and stakeholders to identify their specific BI needs. This step helps tailor the BI solution to cater to the unique requirements of each part of your e-commerce business.

4. Create a Strategy and a Plan

Craft a comprehensive strategy and business intelligence implementation plan. Outline the scope of the project, establish a realistic timeline, allocate a suitable budget, and define the expected outcomes.

5. Identify KPIs

Pinpoint the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will serve as benchmarks for measuring the success of your business intelligence implementation. These KPIs could include metrics like conversion rates, customer lifetime value, and inventory turnover.

6. Choose Software and Develop Dashboards

Select the appropriate BI software and set up the necessary infrastructure, including data sources, data integration, data warehousing, data visualization, and reporting tools. Develop intuitive dashboards that display relevant insights in a user-friendly manner.

Power Bi and Tableau are the two most famous business intelligence software.

7. Run a Pilot

Initiate a pilot project to test the BI solution on a small scale. Gather feedback from users, stakeholders, and departments that demanded data. This feedback loop is vital for refining the solution before full implementation.

8. Use Feedback and Achieve an MVP

Leverage user feedback to address critical issues and refine the BI solution. Aim to achieve a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that fulfills the basic requirements and can deliver value to the business.

9. Educate Staff and Stakeholders

Provide comprehensive training to your team and stakeholders on the benefits and usage of BI tools and data. Offer various learning resources, including text and video tutorials, and conduct personalized training sessions to ensure successful adoption.

10. Create a Feedback System

Establish multiple channels for users to provide feedback and report issues. A responsive feedback system helps identify and resolve potential problems promptly.

11. Measure Success

Consistently measure the success of the implemented BI system using the predefined KPIs. Regularly assess the impact on business outcomes and make necessary adjustments to achieve continuous improvement.

12. Remove Obstacles for Successful Implementation

Identify and address any obstacles hindering the seamless business intelligence implementation and utilization of BI tools. This may involve refining processes, resolving technical glitches, or providing additional training.

3 major Business Intelligence Implementation Challenges

While BI implementation offers tremendous benefits, it's not without its challenges. From data quality issues to stakeholders' resistance, being aware of potential challenges can help you manage the process more effectively. Here are three major challenges that businesses frequently face during the process:

Data Quality and Integration

One of the major challenges in business intelligence implementation is ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of the data. Organizations often gather data from various systems, departments, and external sources. Integrating these disparate data sources into a cohesive and unified format can be complex. Poor data quality, inconsistent formats, and duplicate entries can lead to skewed insights and flawed decision-making.

Change Management and User Adoption

Implementing a new Business Intelligence system requires a cultural shift and acceptance of data-driven decision-making across the organization. Resistance to change and low user adoption are common challenges that can jeopardize the success of business intelligence. Overcoming this challenge needs effective c hange management strategies, comprehensive user training, and clear communication about the benefits of the BI system.

Forbes named this challenge Institutionalization. They believe to institutionalize a process, it must be deemed useful and usable by the organization or mandated by law.

Scalability and Infrastructure

As organizations grow and data volumes expand, scalability becomes a critical concern in BI implementation. The chosen BI infrastructure must be capable of handling increasing data loads without compromising performance. This is a more serious concern when we are talking about E-commerce businesses. Because the expansion in these businesses can be exponential.

Signs of Successful Implementation of Business Intelligence

Improved Operational Efficiency

A successful business intelligence implementation often leads to streamlined and more efficient operations. By automating data collection, reporting, and analysis processes, organizations can reduce manual workloads and save valuable time.

Enhanced Customer Insights

BI tools enable organizations to gain a deeper understanding of their customer's behavior, preferences, and needs. A successful business intelligence implementation allows businesses to segment their customer base, personalize marketing campaigns, and deliver tailored products and services.

Alignment with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A clear sign of a successful business intelligence implementation is when the chosen Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) accurately reflect the organization's strategic goals. The BI system effectively tracks and measures these KPIs, allowing stakeholders to monitor progress and evaluate performance against targets.

Return on Investment (ROI)

A tangible indicator of a successful BI implementation is a positive Return on Investment (ROI). Organizations should see measurable improvements in areas such as revenue growth, cost reduction, increased customer satisfaction, and operational efficiency.

Emerging Trends in Business Intelligence Implementation

Business intelligence and data analytics are one of the hot topics in the business world. Here we are giving you a list of trends in business intelligence. If you are planning to enter this exciting environment, it is better to keep yourself updated.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML): These technologies enable BI tools to perform advanced data analysis, such as predicting future outcomes, identifying patterns, and understanding natural language.

Self-service BI tools: These tools empower users to access and analyze data on their own, without relying on IT or data experts. They offer features such as drag-and-drop interfaces, data discovery, and data preparation.

Mobile BI: This trend refers to the ability of users to access BI information on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile BI allows users to stay connected and informed anytime and anywhere.

Data storytelling: This is the practice of using data visualization, narratives, and interactive elements to convey insights and recommendations from data analysis. Data storytelling helps users to understand and act on data in a compelling way.

Cloud-based BI solutions: These are BI solutions that are hosted on the cloud, rather than on-premise servers. Cloud-based BI solutions offer benefits such as scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.

Ethical data governance: This is the process of ensuring that data is collected, stored, processed, and used in a responsible and ethical way. Ethical data governance involves aspects such as data quality, security, privacy, and compliance.

Key Insights

BI empowers e-commerce with data-driven insights for strategic planning, improved customer experiences, and operational efficiency.

Successful BI implementation enhances decision-making, operational efficiency, customer insights, and aligns with KPIs.

Implementing BI requires a well-defined strategy, including scope, timeline, budget, and selecting suitable software.

The 12 Business Intelligence Implementation steps include analyzing the current state, team collaboration, needs identification, strategy creation, pilot testing, achieving an MVP, and more.

Challenges include data quality, change management, user adoption, and scalability.

Staying updated with emerging BI trends like AI, self-service tools, mobile BI, and ethical data governance is crucial for sustained success.

Image credit: Dribble

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Business Intelligence Implementation: A Clear Step By Step Guide

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Follow this easy to understand step-by-step guide for Business Intelligence Implementation and benefit from the results in your e-commerce.

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Navigating the intricate maze of modern business demands more than intuition; it requires the precise, data-backed insight that a Business Intelligence (BI) strategy provides.

This article dives into the pivotal role of a BI strategy, highlighting its capacity to convert raw data into actionable intelligence. It uncovers the integral steps for successful implementation, exploring the selection of suitable BI tools and cultivating a data-centric culture.

The Importance of Business Intelligence

Business intelligence offers a myriad of benefits that can drastically transform an organization's strategy and decision-making process:

Customer Insight: BI provides a detailed understanding of customer behavior, preferences, and trends. This allows organizations to tailor their offerings and communication strategies, meeting customer needs proactively, which, in turn, improves satisfaction and loyalty.

Operational Efficiency: Through BI, companies can pinpoint inefficiencies and swiftly enact corrective measures. Whether it's supply chain management or internal processes, the visibility offered by BI leads to optimized operations and cost savings.

Competitive Advantage: Gaining competitive intelligence through a robust BI strategy keeps organizations ahead of the curve. Understanding market trends and competitor actions spark innovation and growth, ultimately fostering a competitive edge.

Predictive Analysis: The advent of predictive analytics and AI technologies in BI helps forecast future trends and scenarios. This allows organizations to strategize and adapt, preparing them for potential market shifts.

Profitability and Resilience: BI serves as a strategic asset, significantly boosting competitiveness and profitability when implemented effectively. It paves the way for not just survival but thriving in an increasingly dynamic business environment.

Building a Business Intelligence Strategy

Building a business intelligence strategy requires meticulous planning and a deep understanding of the organization's objectives. Here are the crucial steps to ensure the success of a BI strategy.

Define Your Objectives

The first step in developing a BI strategy is to clearly define your objectives. Identify the specific business challenges you want to address and the key metrics you need to track. Whether it's improving marketing ROI, enhancing customer segmentation, or optimizing campaign performance, setting clear objectives is crucial.

Data Assessment

Evaluate the existing data infrastructure. Identify what data is currently available, how it is captured and stored, and whether it serves the organization's needs. Assess the gaps and determine what additional data needs to be captured or what tools are required to better utilize this data.

Data Extraction and Transformation

A robust BI strategy requires a streamlined data pipeline. Partnering with an advanced marketing analytics platform like Improvado ensures seamless data extraction, transformation, and normalization. This allows you to integrate data from multiple sources, such as social media, advertising platforms, and CRM systems, into a centralized and standardized format.

Data Visualization and Analysis

Effective data visualization is the cornerstone of successful business intelligence. Utilize powerful BI tools like QlikView to create interactive dashboards and reports. These visual representations enable you to explore data, identify trends, and communicate insights effectively.

Promote a Data-driven Culture

For a BI strategy to be effective, it's essential to foster a culture that values data-driven decision making. This involves training employees on the use of BI tools and promoting the benefits of data-backed decisions.

Implementing Self-Service Analytics

Empower your marketing and analytics teams with self-service analytics capabilities. Provide access to intuitive BI software that allows users to explore and analyze data independently. Self-service analytics enhances collaboration, accelerates decision-making, and reduces dependency on IT resources.

Review and Update

As markets and businesses evolve, so should the BI strategy. Regular reviews should be conducted to assess the strategy's effectiveness, updating it as necessary to keep it aligned with changing business goals and conditions.

Continuous Improvement and Training

Business intelligence is an ongoing process. Encourage a culture of continuous improvement by monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) and regularly refining your BI strategy. Additionally, invest in training programs to enhance the data literacy skills of your team members, ensuring they can leverage BI tools effectively.

Challenges in Implementing Business Intelligence Strategy

Implementing a business intelligence strategy comes with its own set of challenges. While BI offers significant benefits, it's important to be aware of the potential hurdles and address them proactively. Here are some common challenges encountered during the implementation of a BI strategy.

Data Quality and Integration

Ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and integrity can be a major challenge. Integrating data from various sources and aligning them to a standardized format can be complex and time-consuming. Data cleansing and transformation processes may be required to overcome inconsistencies and discrepancies.

Data Governance and Security

Establishing proper data governance practices and ensuring data security are critical challenges. Organizations must define data access levels, implement security protocols, and comply with data protection regulations. Maintaining data privacy and protecting sensitive information are essential to building trust and credibility.

Organizational Alignment

Achieving organizational alignment and buy-in is crucial for successful BI implementation. Resistance to change, lack of executive support, and siloed departments can hinder the adoption and effectiveness of BI initiatives. Clear communication, change management strategies, and fostering a data-driven culture are key to overcoming this challenge.

User Adoption and Training

Encouraging user adoption of BI tools and promoting data literacy across the organization can be a hurdle. Some employees may be resistant to new technologies or lack the necessary skills to utilize BI tools effectively. Providing comprehensive training programs, user-friendly interfaces, and ongoing support can help overcome this challenge.

Scalability and Infrastructure

As data volumes increase, scalability and infrastructure become challenges. Handling large datasets, ensuring system performance, and managing storage requirements can strain existing infrastructure. Organizations need to plan for scalability, invest in robust hardware and software, and consider cloud-based solutions to meet growing data demands.

Change Management and Cultural Shift

Implementing a BI strategy often requires a cultural shift within the organization. This includes changing how decisions are made, fostering a data-driven mindset, and promoting collaboration across departments. Overcoming resistance to change and ensuring effective change management practices are essential for successful implementation.

Return on Investment (ROI) Measurement

Measuring the ROI of BI initiatives can be challenging. It requires defining appropriate metrics, establishing baseline performance, and tracking the impact of BI on key business outcomes. Without a clear understanding of the value generated by BI, it can be difficult to justify investments and secure continued support.

Keeping Pace with Technology Advancements

The rapidly evolving nature of technology presents an ongoing challenge. New tools, techniques, and trends emerge in the BI landscape, requiring organizations to stay up to date and evaluate the relevance of new advancements. Continuous learning, staying informed, and adapting to technological changes are essential to maximize the benefits of BI.

Best Practices for Business Intelligence Success

Achieving success with a business intelligence strategy requires more than merely implementing the right tools and processes. It also calls for an alignment with organizational goals and a strong commitment to data-driven decision-making. Here are some best practices for BI success.

Secure Data Governance

Maintain data security and privacy by implementing robust data governance practices. Ensure compliance with relevant regulations, such as GDPR, and establish protocols for data access, encryption, and anonymization. Prioritize the protection of personal and sensitive data.

Align BI with Business Goals

Your BI strategy should align closely with your organization's overall business goals. Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that directly contribute to your business objectives and track them consistently. This alignment ensures that your BI efforts drive meaningful insights and impact the bottom line.

Foster Cross-Department Collaboration

Encourage collaboration between marketing, analytics, and other relevant departments. Break down data silos and promote knowledge sharing. By leveraging diverse perspectives and expertise, you can uncover hidden insights and make more informed decisions.

Stay Abreast of Emerging Trends

Keep up with the latest trends in business intelligence and analytics. Stay informed about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, and assess their potential for enhancing your BI capabilities. Embrace innovative solutions to gain a competitive advantage.

Summing Up

Implementing a robust business intelligence strategy is essential for large enterprises seeking to leverage their data effectively. By following the steps and best practices outlined in this article, marketing and analytics decision-makers can enhance their BI capabilities and make data-driven decisions with confidence. Embrace advanced marketing analytics solutions like Improvado, leverage powerful BI tools, and foster a culture of continuous improvement to unlock the full potential of your data.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Business Intelligence Strategy: Best Practices for Successful Implementation

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Learn the essential steps and best practices for implementing a successful business intelligence (BI) strategy.

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Business Intelligence Implementation - 2024 Ultimate Guide

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Imagine navigating rush hour traffic while blindfolded and in a new car. You don’t know all the controls, and you didn’t bother to ask. Disaster! It’s a reality for many businesses struggling to harness their BI tools.

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Business Intelligence (BI) plays a pivotal role in today's corporate landscape by providing companies with the data-driven insights necessary to make informed decisions, thus positively impacting operations, growth, and profitability.

This article will offer a step-by-step guide on how to implement a highly effective BI strategy within your organisation. Additionally, we will delve into the numerous advantages of BI, the key components of a BI strategy, and essential best practices to ensure a seamless implementation process.

Benefits of Business Intelligence

BI brings an array of benefits to companies seeking to optimise their operations and bolster their bottom line. Here are some key advantages of BI:

Real-time data tracking

One of the most significant benefits of BI is that it provides instant access to the important data needed to run your business more effectively. This allows you to be proactive in your decision-making instead of finding out too late that an essential action needed to be taken.

Different departments in your company are most likely collecting different types of data. When viewed separately, you only receive a partial picture of what is going on. Business intelligence allows you to receive all of this data in one comprehensive report, making it easier to make informed, data-driven decisions that will positively impact your business.

You'll receive important insights that will help you understand how to address areas where employees are underperforming, redundant roles exist, and other organisational inefficiencies are negatively impacting performance. You'll also be able to see the results of the actions you take to determine whether they've achieved their desired outcome or if additional adjustments to your strategy are required.

It can be easy to get lost in a sea of data. Business intelligence solutions allow you to more clearly see how this data is impacting every aspect of your organisation.

You'll be able to view historic data and compare it to the real-time data you're gathering to better understand trends in your market, predict the success of potential strategies, and identify actions to take which may help you increase revenue and profitability moving forward.

Deeper customer insights

You can use your BI efforts to more effectively understand the behaviours, preferences and purchasing patterns of your customers. This can help you provide better customer service and make improvements to your products that will resonate with your customers.

Greater competitive advantage in your market

You have the ability to compare your metrics with those of your competitors to understand areas where you're performing better than they are, and also ways in which you can learn from their actions to improve your performance. This knowledge can help you create a plan that will make you stand out from your competitors and resonate better with potential new customers.

Key Components of a Business Intelligence Strategy

A successful BI strategy requires a combination of people, processes, and tools. Here are the key components of a BI strategy:

The first step in developing a BI strategy is to identify your goals. What are you trying to achieve? What insights do you need to get there? Make sure you have a clear understanding of your goals before you begin the implementation process.

Business intelligence encompasses multiple aspects of your operations, and therefore, it's crucial that the team responsible for implementing your strategy includes individuals from all departments using this data.

You'll need to determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) are necessary to track to achieve the desired outcome from your business intelligence efforts.

Choose your software tools

There are many BI software tools available. You'll need to evaluate your options and identify the right tool(s) for the specific needs of your business.

Choose a data storage method

There are two options for storing the data used with your business intelligence tools: on-site servers or cloud-based solutions. In most instances, a cloud-based option will be a more effective approach.

Often, each department will have their own unique way of gathering data, and they most likely will each utilise different sets of tools, approaches, and storage methods. In order to receive the holistic insights necessary for effective BI implementation, you'll need to integrate all data in one place so that it can be evaluated in a broader context.

When creating your business intelligence strategy, schedule regular meetings with all team members involved in the process to monitor the status of the project and make any necessary adjustments to your plan.

Rather than launching your entire BI strategy at once, start with just a few critical KPIs. This will allow you to evaluate the success of your strategy on a smaller scale and make any necessary adjustments before implementing your plan on a broader scale.

Best Practices for Implementing a Business Intelligence Strategy

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when implementing your BI strategy:

Your BI strategy requires buy-in from the executive level to ensure that it's implemented effectively and that the insights gathered are acted upon.

Collaborate with stakeholders

Collaborate with stakeholders across the organisation to ensure that your BI efforts are aligned with the goals of each department and the business as a whole.

Ensure that the data you're using to make decisions is accurate, up-to-date, and relevant to your goals.

Prioritise user adoption

Implement a user adoption program to ensure that your team members are comfortable with the new tools and understand how to use them to their fullest potential.

Evaluate your strategy regularly

Regularly evaluate the success of your BI strategy to ensure that it's delivering the insights and data you need to achieve your goals. Make adjustments as necessary.

In conclusion, business intelligence is a crucial tool for today's businesses. By implementing an effective BI strategy, you'll have access to the insights and data needed to make informed decisions that can positively impact your operations, growth, and profitability.

To implement an effective BI strategy, you'll need to identify your goals, choose the right team, define your KPIs, choose your software tools and data storage method, synchronise your data, create a feedback loop, and roll out in stages. Remember to get executive buy-in, collaborate with stakeholders, focus on data quality, prioritise user adoption, and evaluate your strategy regularly.

By following these steps and best practices, you'll be well on your way to implementing an effective BI strategy that delivers the insights and data your business needs to achieve its goals.

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How to Implement an Effective Business Intelligence Strategy

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Business Intelligence (BI) plays a pivotal role in today's corporate landscape by providing companies with the data-driven insights necessary to make informed decisions, thus positively impacting operations, growth, and profitability. This article will offer a step-by-step guide on how to implement

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Venturing into a new Business Intelligence (BI) project can be as exciting as it is daunting. For many people, BI is something they know they need, but they don't quite know where to get started. One of the things I see time and time again are enterprises and software vendors that jump right into developing their first BI solutions without the necessary planning in place. For example, these companies neglect to:

Establish a clear picture of what the problem they are trying to resolve is

Understand who their actual target audience is or what they want

Outline a clear set of deliverables to target completion

Etc.

All of these issues lead companies down a spiraling path of endless development, redefining of requirements, and wasted effort that rarely results in successful solutions.

Throughout my time working with various companies both new and experienced in BI, I have developed a basic guide to ensure that any BI project is a successful one. This approach aims to minimize endless documentation and instead focuses on gathering a clear understanding of the problems that need solving along with the end-users expectation. So, without further ado, here is my 4-step guide to implementing a successful Business Intelligence solution.

Step 1: Understand the Business Needs

Outcome of this Step: Determine a list of business requirements

Before you start getting into 'how' you are going to implement your BI solution, you need to understand 'why'. The purpose of every solution is to solve a problem, and Business Intelligence is no different. Without an understanding of the problem you are trying to solve is, there is nothing to guide your implementation. By understanding the problem, you can begin to outline the requirements of your solution.

How to get there: Understand your audience

At the end of the day, you are building a solution for your end-users and stakeholders. If the solution does not meet their expectations, then it won't be considered a success. That's why it's important to understand who your audience is, what problems they currently have, and what they are hoping to gain from a BI solution. I recommend meeting with members of each of your user groups (face-to-face whenever possible) and having these discussions to better understand their needs. During these meetings, you'll want to ask questions such as:

What problems and pain points are you hoping to alleviate with a BI solution? As mentioned before, without knowledge of the problems, there is no way to develop a solution. Who better to tell you their problems than the people you are building the solution for?

Which current business areas are lacking visibility? Sometimes it goes beyond knowing what problems you are currently facing, and instead recognizing there are problems that you may not even be aware of. Business Intelligence opens the floodgates when it comes to possibility, and that often means being able to get clarity on avenues that were previously unavailable.

What kind of experience are they looking to have with a BI solution? You can develop what you believe to be the greatest dashboard(s) of all time, perfect for being viewed on large, mounted monitors. After days of work, the deadline comes, and you present your baby to the stakeholders. Within a couple of seconds, all your hard work is torn to shreds as they utter, "Can you make this work on my mobile devices?". I have seen this specific scenario and many others like it happen countless times. I can't stress enough how easy and important it is to avoid such wasted efforts by simply talking to your audience, understanding the type of experience they are looking to have, and making sure your solution matches their expectations.

Step 2: Keep it SMART

Outcome of this step: Determine a list of SMART objectives

One of the best ways to ensure the success of a project is to determine what its objectives are. Objectives provide you with a clear set of goals that you can guide your solution towards. By meeting those objectives, you can say that your solution achieved exactly what it is supposed to.

With that being said, any list of objectives just won't cut it. For example, let's say you proceed with the objective of making more sales. How do you actually determine if an objective like this has been achieved? Are you trying to make more sales compared to the previous year? Are you trying to make more sales during the month following the implementation of the solution compared to the previous month? If you make one more sale than in the previous period, does that count? This is where SMART objectives come in. SMART stands for:

With SMART objectives, we can eliminate any ambiguity, progress becomes much easier to track, and unrealistic objectives are avoided.

Now, let's revisit the example objective I had, but this time I'll make sure it meets the SMART objective criteria: Our objective is to increase the total year-end sales dollar amount by at least 10% compared to the previous year.

As you can see, this is a much more specific objective. I have a timeline to achieve it by (end of the year), and a clear target I am trying to hit (110% of last year's total sales). Any objectives that do not follow the SMART guidelines should not be considered objectives of your project until they have been revamped to do so.

Step 3: Determine your Deliverables

Outcome of this step: Determine a list of project deliverables and sub-list of KPI definitions for each deliverable

At this point, you should have a solid understanding of why you need a BI solution. Now, it's time to think about how you will get there. Before any development begins, you need to know what you are actually developing. Are you developing a dashboard, multiple dashboards, or an automated report? Are you preparing data for self-service analysis? A good BI tool will offer you limitless possibilities in terms of what you can create, so before you get lost in the development process, determine what the deliverables of the project will be. It's important to distinguish and separate your project objectives from your project deliverables. Remember, objectives focus on elements that are external to the project, while deliverables focus on elements internal to the project.

How to get there: Use what you know

You've spoken to your stakeholders and target audience and based on these discussions you should have an understanding of how many different user groups you are dealing with, what problems they are looking to resolve, and what type of experience each wants. Use this knowledge to determine what deliverables will best achieve the results your audience is looking for. Think about how much overlap you have between each of your user groups and their requirements. Can some of these be addressed within a single deliverable, or are they separate pieces to the overall solution?

For example, your target audience might include members of your Business Development and Finance departments, as well as upper management who oversees both those teams. The individual members of those two departments are looking for a way to monitor and track their specific and detailed day-to-day operations and performance, while upper management wants to receive scheduled updates on the overall performance of both departments. Upper management also wants the ability to see the detailed, day-to-day information, but only when there are any issues. In this case, your deliverables could be:

1. A detailed-level Business Development dashboard

2. A detailed-level Financial dashboard

3. A scheduled, high-level report on both departments

At this stage, you will also want to start thinking about which KPIs you'll include on each of your deliverables. As this is a Business Intelligence solution, the driving force of the solution's information will be the KPIs that it presents. Now that you know what deliverables you will be providing, think about which KPIs can best address the business requirements and SMART objectives associated with your solution.

Remember, real-estate on dashboards and reports is precious, so every KPI should serve a purpose. If you cannot tie a KPI back to one of the solution's business objectives, then it probably is not needed. Then, for each of your deliverables, come up with a sub-list of the KPIs it will include, along with the business objective each KPI will address.

To make the development of each KPI more seamless, putting the right amount of planning into defining each KPI is critical. Here are some things I recommend considering when defining your KPIs:

What measures and dimensions should the KPI include?

How can the KPI be filtered?

Are there any targets or comparisons to be made?

Are there any conditional states that signify if the results are good or bad?

Where is this data coming from?

The idea is that these definitions should be clear enough that even users without a technical background should be able to easily understand them. By creating these definitions, the transition to developing your KPIs will be a smooth one, as it will simply be a matter of applying what has already been defined.

Step 4: To the Drawing Board

Outcome of this step: Create mockups for each deliverable

The fourth and final step to this guide is to create mockups for your deliverables. In this phase, you'll want to begin by laying out each deliverable's set of KPIs in a drawing. Yup, a physical drawing! These drawings can start out roughly (treat them as you would a brainstorming session) as you'll want to easily be able to make changes. I prefer working on a whiteboard at first.

To simplify this step, I like breaking it down into two parts:

Determining your data visualizations. At this point, you should have your KPIs well defined; you should know what they are going to include and what business objectives they are going to serve. This is where you will want to utilize your data visualization skills to determine the best visualization option to make understanding the data as easy as possible. A user should be able to tell if a KPI is meeting its objective or not within a simple glance, and the right visualization will allow for that.

Design the layout of your KPIs and user interface (UI). By now you should know who the target audience of each deliverable will be, so use this information to create a suitable design. Think about each group of users that will be interacting with specific dashboards or reports, what their skill-sets are, and what their user stories would be. Use this information to create mockups that address each user group's desired user experience. You should also know how many KPIs your deliverable will have, as well as what types of filters you will want to include. Based on these details, you can determine how to divide that available space and whether you want to have a scrolling view or organize items onto different layers.

This stage is one that tends to be revisited and reworked quite frequently, so be sure to communicate with your stakeholders before making any final decisions. Any feedback that they provide can go right back into adjusting your mockups, which is probably much easier than trying to adjust a finished solution

Closing Comments

The point of these steps is to guide you in the right direction when starting your next Business Intelligence project. What's important to remember, is that this guide provides you with a solid plan to base your development on, rather than going in blindly. Many organizations might already have steps in place to get the same results, however, these are ones that I have seen lead to successful BI solutions countless times.

Are there any steps in this guide that you have put into action before? Are there steps that you feel are missing that you can't start your BI projects without? We'd love to hear from you your success following these steps along with other approaches you've followed in the past.

About the Author

Dany Nehme is the Manager of Professional Services at Dundas Data Visualization. As the leader of the Professional Services team, Dany works with his BI Consultants to ensure they provide guidance to both veteran and new Dundas BI clients, enabling them to implement Dashboards and custom solutions in a best practices manner.
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4 Easy Steps to Implementing a Successful Business Intelligence Solution

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Venturing into a new Business Intelligence (BI) project can be as exciting as it is daunting. Here is a 4-step guide to implementing a successful Business Intelligence solution.

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Vivek is the creator and head of Medha Analytics Key Criteria , offering advanced analytics and AI solutions for healthcare providers. 1. Institutionalization
Fascinatingly, business intelligence (BI) implementations are only half as likely to succeed as missions to the moon! Although 41 of the 111 missions to the moon have been unsuccessful in the last six decades, studies estimate the failure rates for BI implementations to be up to 80%. However, despite the "astronomical" failure rates, a look at the giant market size and growth rate of the BI market-estimated to be upwards of $24 billion and growing at close to 9% CAGR-indicates that the business community badly wants the BI system to work.
2. Use-Case Identification
That leads us to a basic question on what constitutes a success or a failure in a BI system. There are two fundamental indicators of a successful BI implementation. First, is BI institutionalized in the organization? This signifies that using BI for decision making is not a choice but is part of the process. Second, is there an objective mechanism defined to identify use cases that need to be taken up by BI? This implies that the BI roadmap is strategic and not opportunistic or unstructured.
You Need Champions, Too
For any process to be institutionalized, it needs to be recognized by the organization as useful and usable, or it must be mandated by law. Although BI definitely isn't mandated by law, it has to be usable, and it must be perceived as useful. The usefulness of the BI system largely depends on the impact it is expected to create and the credibility of the information it presents. The usability of the BI system is broadly defined by the ease of learning, the ease of use and the availability of the system. Although fancy dashboards carrying every type of chart known to mankind look good on brochures, the practicality of the solution is often a critical factor in determining its usability.
And Don't Forget Your Stakeholders
The key factors that affect the use-case identification process are the availability of data around the use case, the quality of the data, the value the use case is expected to add and the technical complexity of developing the use case. A high-level process map of the organization along with the data and analytics coverage around each process can present a clear picture of the overall penetration of analytics. High-impact processes with sufficient data coverage but low analytics coverage can be a starting point to identify good use cases. This process can be repeated for subprocesses within the high-level process.

The frameworks around institutionalization and use-case identification are critical to the success of a BI implementation but so are the people chosen to create and manage these frameworks. There need to be champions identified to own each of the processes outlined. There should be an impact tracker who maintains a log containing all the use cases and their impact. You will need a person in charge of training and adoption. There needs to be a champion for the user experience the BI system provides. Similarly, there should be owners from the BI team tagged to the high-level processes and their subprocesses.

All the factors we've specified so far are internal to the BI team, but the success of a BI implementation will involve the commitment of several stakeholders external to the team as well. The functional teams play a key role in creating the process maps, helping quantify the impact, championing adoption and providing feedback to the BI team. The IT team plays an important role in providing data access and ensuring that the infrastructure around data movement is adequate.

The BI team needs to ensure that communication channels with all the external stakeholders are strong, active and structured. Most importantly, the management team needs to understand the importance of BI and its limitations and be determined and patient enough to see the BI implementation through.

There will be many nuanced calls and compromises that your organization will face in its BI journey. But it's a journey well worth it. In 2016, IBM analysts estimated that bad data costs the U.S. economy alone $3.1 trillion per year! Although one can always argue about the rigor of such estimates, there are several other studies that have reinforced the value a successfully implemented BI system offers. However, if the BI implementation just isn't working out, there are always simpler things the organization can try. How about a mission to the moon?

Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

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Council Post: How To Lead A Successful Business Intelligence Implementation

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There will be many nuanced calls and compromises that your organization will face in its BI journey. But it's a journey well worth it.