From Business Intelligence to Business Discovery
Posted on Thu, Aug 25, 2011
The emergence of Business Discovery is a response to users’ mounting frustrations and unmet needs, according to a recent report by CITO Research. It’s a new kind of productivity software putting users in control of exploring and exploiting their own data, allowing IT to focus on core processes rather than attending to their every need.
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Business Discovery bridges the gap between reporting-focused BI solutions and standalone applications like Excel. It enables users at every level of the organization to find tailored insights addressing their individual needs and deadlines. In essence, Business Discovery transforms everyone into a highly informed business analyst.
In many ways, Business Discovery aims to fulfill the original promise of BI, which
proved to be impossible due to the limits of the architecture, forcing IT to shoulder the burden. But Business Discovery improves upon reporting-focused BI because there is no predefined path to follow and no questions to formulate ahead of time. Users ask what they need to ask, and they explore—aggregating up, down, and sideways—rather than simply drilling down.
Using lightweight tools that marry connectors to the underlying databases with fluid interfaces reminiscent of apps, Business Discovery systems drive down the cost and complexity of aggregating disparate data sources, which can then be combined and correlated in different ways to discover waste or opportunities.
For example, a question as simple and as random as whether there’s a correlation between the size of a product shipment and the number of units placed on backorder may require data from three separate databases. IT knows all too well that combining those three would take six months and cost upwards of $250,000. So the answer to most questions is usually, “Forget it; it’s not worth it.”
But what if it cost $5,000 and a day’s worth of work? Users would have an answer the next day, with enough money in the budget left over to commission another dozen or more projects just like it. If only one results in significant savings, the scattershot approach will have been worth it. By driving down the opportunity costs for IT and users alike to ask questions and make better-informed decisions, users are in a better position to capture market share, drive revenue growth, and cut costs because they no longer have to wait for the data they need.
The evolution from a reporting-focused BI paradigm to Business Discovery has profound implications for IT, replacing its traditional delivery role with a support and enablement one. Rather than building applications day in and day out, they dispense tools and training to users while refocusing on larger issues such as data governance, security, and the underlying enterprise systems.