Don't just take my word for it...

I've always enjoyed having the chance to stand on my soapbox and tell people what I think... about almost anything! I find that by being upfront with partners, clients, and prospects, there's far less risk of problems down the road. So thank you to those of you who have listened to my advice/opinions/rants in the past.

Obviously some (most) of my comments are about Business Intelligence - which kind of makes sense! But I think it is really important for people to have multiple sources for their information. So listed below are a few resources that I think are of great value for those currently using Business Intelligene in their businesses, or for those considering a step down that path. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to forward them:

• The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI): This organization is not affiliated with any particular vendor, and their site has lots of great content. In particular, Wayne Eckerson always has great comments/insight.
• TDWI on Linked-In: For ongoing, community-generated discussions about BI, this is a great place to go. Highly recommended.
• BOB - BusinessObjects Forum: If you are using BusinessObjects for your BI, as either a technical resource or an end-user, this site has lots of excellent content! It has lots of willing participation from around the world. And it is independent of SAP BusinessObjects, so there is definitely some honesty there!
• SDN - The SAP Software Developers Network: I know what you're thinking, but this is NOT a plug for SAP. (They do enough of that by themselves!) But the SDN is another well-maintained site open to public contribution, and with lots of helpful people involved.
• The Kimball Group: Ralph Kimball knows more about Data Warehouses than most of us can ever hope to learn, but I also find that hte information is readable - far more so than any technical manual I've ever seen. Check out their forums, too.

This should get you started! I'll add some more soon. Also, we'll be adding some video blog pieces to youtube.com soon. Hope it's useful.

Jim

SMBs need BI, too!

BI is not just for big companies!

Over the last six or seven years, I've been involved in providing and implementing Business Intelligence technologies to clients in small businesses. Sometimes, we didn't call it 'BI', but in most cases it really was.

In recent years, many vendors have come forward to talk about having BI 'solutions' (uuggh - I hate that term) for SMBs, but the problem is that they tend to forget the 'S' in SMB. What about the business that doesn't do $300M p.a. in sales?

The reality is that those (not so) small businesses, can definitely reap great benefits from a well thought-out BI implementation. The key is in finding a good place to create value.

Example #1: One of our clients is a distributor of Pet Foods to retailers across Eastern Canada. Their products are sold to independents, large chains, and to several buying groups. They have a team of salespeople, and seem to have order-entry staff working constantly.

The Problem: With such a diverse sales channel, how can you effectively monitor sales for allocation to the appropriate salesrep? Also, with a significant opportunity to receive Vendor rebates based on product and Geo performance, how can you create valid reports to support claims?

How did we solve this? Well, not suprisingly for a business of this size in this market, we didn't build a comprehensive Enterprise Data Warehouse. We didn't implement costly ETL technology platforms, nor did we develop a model requiring dedicated staff FTE resources.

Before recommending a large-scale project of dubious value and return, we took some time to understand both the client's business and the value that could be realized from automating this manual process - how much time was going into doing this manually? How many days per month? We worked with them to determine the repercussions of 'hiccups' in processing - what would be the implications downtime for the system? And we collaborated with them in finding the best balance between budget, timeliness, and fault-tolerance.

In the end, we implement a collection of easily maintained, highly reliable SQL transformation jobs, in conjunction with BusinessObjects Crystal Reports Server. Total cost to the client? Well, let's just say that over the past four years, they have saved the cost of implementing and maintaining this system several times over. They can consistently recover rebates from their vendors. And in addition, they now have a reliable sales information repository!!!

So how does this relate to my initial point, about BI for SMBs? Quite simply, it is not always a matter of considering a large scale project, spanning all aspects of a business, in order to achieve value from Business Intelligence. Implementing BI definitely has a cost, as does any technology. But the issue is to find appropriate ways to offset that cost by generating business value. At some later date, I will no doubt reference the intangible value of Business Intelligence. But for now, let's remember that it is quite possible to justify BI in any size of business.

You don't need to be a global giant to find an ROI.