A successful roll-out of business intelligence (BI) software for your business takes preparation and an approach to the process from a holistic, culture-changing perspective. Going through an implementation with an experienced partner to guide this process is also beneficial.
For businesses that have successfully implemented their BI solutions, the technological adoption of BI software is just one ingredient in a larger process. This system also involves processes where multiple drivers are as important in ensuring the ongoing success and the greater integration of data-driven approaches to business forecasting and planning.
When it comes to implementing BI software, there are a few best practices you can adopt in order to ensure you’re getting your business off to the strongest possible start on this journey. Let’s take a look at four of these now.
1. The Best Solutions Take Time
As with any long-term success story, your new BI system will take time to implement, to roll out, and to become a native part of your business.
Part of the challenge of trying to develop and integrate a BI solution for your business will be in creating a support structure around the new program. This is an important step in allowing employees and stakeholders to be included in the initial processes.
Using the intellectual capital of your business to include employee expertise and experience is a pivotal part of the process. The more encouragement and involvement in the development process that you can offer to key employees and stakeholders, the more likely they are to create solutions with long-term projections and profitability.
By setting long-term goals and including subject matter experts in the processes, you will ensure a level of personal accountability and responsibility remains throughout the life of the project. This is an important factor in driving longer-term goals.
2. Put Your Best Foot Forward
The creation of momentum is also an important factor when implementing your new BI software.
Driving small ‘wins’ by implementing simpler, smaller solutions initially may help to improve the perception and outlook of the new software.
In order to create these initial successes, it might be as simple as approaching trusted experts from within your business and giving them the support and freedom necessary to help integrate some of their know-how and expertise into the system.
3. Set Individual Goalposts & Benchmarks
Another important challenge which may pop-up when implementing your BI solution is in the creation of goals and objectives which are too large, and too unmanageable for employees to visualise.
Setting individualized goals may help to provide a series of smaller, more manageable objectives which can create a series of ‘wins’ for your business – ultimately providing a more positive culture around the use of BI data.
One of the aims of BI is to create tangible future benefits and ongoing improvement on ROI.
Therefore, an important part in the process is to display these wins as they happen in order to foster ongoing engagement with the technology, from both a stakeholder perspective and from a user/employee perspective.
4. The Devil is in the Details
Another key challenge when unpacking data through BI is the emphasis on data presentation, that is, the presentation of data as graphs, charts and numbers.
In order to get the best use out of your BI software, it’s important to understand the meaning behind these representations – and to reflect on what the data means.
One of the greatest challenges for businesses is in utilising and harnessing the predictive power of their BI data. The use of data as a forecasting tool is only useful insofar as it is meaningful and understood by those who wish to use it to create solutions. Without this in-depth understanding, pure data is only of limited value.
There’s no better way to achieve the BI results you want than through developing a strong partnership with your provider. Endeavour Solutions aims to help you through each stage of the process, and to continue to support you well beyond the implementation of your new BI software. For more information on how we can assist your business, get in touch with one of our consultants today on 1300 583 097.
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