There are two different approaches to a BI initiative: top-down and organic growth. The top-down approach starts with high-level enterprise metrics and works its way down to the operational level, building the BI architecture as it branches downward. On the other hand, the organic growth approach focuses on a specific problem area first, which may be at any level of the organization. Once successful, it either replicates the BI model to other problem areas, or starts to pull in adjacent/related areas, thereby expanding the scope of its BI architecture.
In either case, the key is to start with a project that is small enough to manage, but will have a big enough impact to make a case for continued funding. An organization then can incrementally build the BI architecture, bringing in additional data (either in breadth or depth) and expand the scope of the initiative.
As the scenario in the first section described, the demand for information and accountability for performance is driven down through the different levels and among the different departments of an organization. As a result, BI initiatives will grow themselves quite naturally. As this growth occurs, the key is to look at the cohesiveness and standardization of the BI architecture. The presentation of information, and the calculations and data it is based on, must be consistent for information to be used across the organization. Remember the mantra: “One version of the truth” – a goal BI shares with data warehousing, one of its supporting technologies.
That leads to the last tip when starting a BI initiative: Start small, but think big. The eventual goal is to have BI pervasive throughout the organization, so even when starting with a small point project, consider bigger picture and organization-wide BI vision. This will help ensure the data structure is solid, yet adaptable (as the data collected grows), the technologies chosen are scalable to support the whole organization, and the application functionality is flexible to be used in varying analyses.
Successful BI initiatives require a broad business perspective, high discipline and strong analytical skills, all of which CPAs exemplify. By starting small and incrementing on success, we can help empower decision making at all levels of the organization.