Business Intelligence Journal | Vol 25, No 1
TDWI Member Exclusive
June 12, 2020
Business intelligence isn’t just about the data you have. What you know about that data and having the skills to use it matter just as much.
As Hugh J. Watson, TDWI Fellow and senior editor of the BI Journal, and Doug Laney point out, enterprises may do a fine job of giving business professionals the keys to BI tools they need, but that’s of little benefit if users don’t know what data is available and how it can be accessed. In short, enterprises are suffering from a data literacy problem. Users must understand the data, certainly, but they also need skills in data curation and management, data prep, and data analytics. It’s a big task, but the authors offer a plan that will help your enterprise increase its data literacy.
Data access is important, assuming you know where your data is. Is it in a data warehouse or a data lake? Svetlozar Nestorov, Nenad Jukić, Abhishek Sharma, and Boris Jukić explain that it isn’t an either/or choice. They argue that we should look at a spectrum that allows companies to make informed decisions about storage based on their needs and available financial resources.
You may have all the data you need yet still experience what Amnon Drori calls “data analysis gone wrong.” He explains how data issues begin (from haphazard collection and poor storage practices to dirty or ungoverned data) and describes three ways your enterprise can regain control of its data.
Data sheds light on how your enterprise is doing, but only if you understand your data and use it to measure the right business activities and results. Jude Francis, Jehan Poco, and David C. Anderson, Ph.D., share their experience in leveraging a BI system to execute a metrics-based contract research organization model. They emphasize the importance of proper metrics data integration, accuracy, and data analytics and reporting.
Do you have enough of the right people performing analytics? Our BI experts, Jim Gallo, John Marzullo, and Brian Valeyko, weigh in on having the right teams and centers of excellence to get the most from your data.
Does your staff have the right skills for the job? That’s critical, Mikael Berndtsson and Thomas Svahn point out. The authors offer suggestions to analytics leaders for scaling up their analytics by focusing on the nontechnical aspects of the task. Rounding out this issue, Fern Halper, TDWI’s VP of research and senior research director for advanced analytics, explains current survey results that shed light on how enterprises are developing talent for modern analytics.
As always, we look forward to hearing from you about your problems and solutions. Contact me at [email protected].