Intro: Why Should You Care About BI?

What I want to talk about is Business Intelligence: wringing the data out of your systems and processes to improve decision-making, and ultimately, performance.

There's lots of BI talk out there for our technical partners (written by technical people), but very little to educate us as business people about why BI matters now, how our competitors are using it to gain an advantage over us, or what we have to bring to the table to make BI successful...because it won't happen without us.

Now, before we break into rounds of Kumbaya, let me tell you what to expect (and what not to expect) from this blog.

I won't be reviewing software, weighing in on architecture, or gossipping about the goings-on in Silicon Valley. The first two issues are important, but that is not what we're called to do. The value we add is keeping the focus on business results. Because that's the point, right? I mean, that may seem pretty elementary to some people, but in the tech world, I think it's too easy to get wrapped up in the technology for technology's sake.

That said, the world of competitive BI is probably going to require you to learn some things they didn't teach you in business school, like what is a data warehouse, why you need metadata and how to leverage business intelligence tools to raise your group's level of performance. Don't let your brain shut down if you encounter unfamiliar terms. For you to be competitive in the New World Order of data, this all needs to be part of your vocabulary.

I'm telling you this because no one ever bothered to tell me. I had to wade through a lot of technical noise to get to the bottom line: how will this help me do a better job at the job I already do?

One last point: your feedback is welcome and necessary to the relevance of this blog. Let me know what issues you are facing in your organization and I will try to address as many as I can. Thanks for reading.