Business Intelligence Transforms Your Organization

Addressing staffing requirements key as Data Warehousing morphs into Business Intelligence.

Data Warehousing has morphed into Business Intelligence with the goal of driving revenues, reducing operating costs and understanding how to obtain and retain customers. While some organizations have grasped the concept of building advanced analytical systems, others still have not figured out how to transform their organization, structure and processes, thus replacing conventional organization roles and responsibilities. 

An organizations data is the most valuable asset.  Without accurate, easily accessible data, businesses do not have the ability to analyze and report on the business, identify trends and patterns, present the organizations data consistently and restructure the data so that it makes sense to the business users with the goal of making important corporate decisions. 

The traditional organization contains staff that performs manual processes of gathering data from disparate systems for reporting and analytics from various parts of the organization.  These individuals are typically not trained in the appropriate methodologies or technical skills set to transform on to a Business Intelligence technical team.  The team structure needs to mimic the organization and must cohabitate with the operations of the business, analysts and all individuals in the Information Technology organization.  Questions need to be asked that address the team member’s role and responsibilities about what they will do and how they will do it.

This can be done by identifying predictable repeatable processes flexible enough to change as the needs of the business change.

Interestingly enough, organizations have still not transformed their staff to meet the changes.   Why not?

This is a significant challenge that corporations face and struggle with, because it is a special skillset that has specific salary adjustment criteria for the unique skill. Taking an existing team member and transforming them into a Data Warehouse Manager, Business Intelligence Architect or Data Modeler reduces the odds of an organizations being successful. 

Do you re-tool the existing staff, deploy them to other value added projects within the organization, or do you just call it a “skill set mismatch” and separate the staff members from the company? Training in this area is available from all of the Data Warehouse vendors on the market.  It is expensive and requires high potential employees with the motivation to want to try something new and stick with it.

Data Warehouses require significant planning and require a lot of skilled resources with a broad skill set.  If a company decides to retool their existing staff, companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Microstrategy and Oracle provide excellent training opportunities.  Companies should obtain the training from the tool vendor that they have selected so that the features of the specific tool are provided in the training course, and the knowledge is obtained by the team members.

Laura Paoletti holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Information Systems and has been the Vice President of Information Technology at NBC-Universal and Disney ABC Television.  She has also held positions at Ernst & Young LLP in the Technology practice.  In her role she has been responsible for Applications, Infrastructure and Digital Media.  Some of her notable accomplishments include the implementation of applications for Digital Media, Marketing, Finance, Manufacturing (supply chain), Sales and Consumer Products; Implementation of Enterprise Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence systems; Data Center management, including hardware, storage strategies, digital libraries and data center expansion; Implementation of a Project Management office; and Business transformation from a tape to a tapeless environment (digital media).