Pick Information Priorities, Defend Business Intelligence SpendingPick Information Priorities, Defend Business Intelligence Spending

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out how to cut IT costs, but it's better to use a scalpel than an axe to do the cutting.

Better yet, why not try more holistic approaches when dealing with the nerve centers of information management and business intelligence? That's the essence of the advice offered by experienced systems integrators in a panel on "BI in Today's Economy" at this month's Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in Washington D.C.

An information Analytics Webcast
Resetting Information and BI Priorities for a Challenging Economy
Presented by Intelligent Enterprise & sponsored by IBM

Pulling together some of the best advice, here specific suggestions in four key areas: resetting investment priorities, cutting cost where you can, making the most of the technology you have, and defending continued investment.

RESET INVESTMENT PRIORITIES

There's no doubt that IT is being asked to do more with less -- 15 percent less is a typical target according to Gartner. In many cases, information management and business intelligence investments are being postponed or spread out over a longer period of time.

Break projects into smaller chunks. Multi-year programs are particularly vulnerable, so it's better to break them up into smaller steps that happen to coordinate with a long-term roadmap.

"We're seeing lots of three-month projects focused on specific objectives with tangible results," says Shari Rogalski, Executive Director, Accenture Information Management Services. "Technically driven projects, for example, are still happening, particularly if they are about rationalizing software maintenance or licensing costs or automating labor-intensive activities."

Instill investment and delivery discipline. Companies are taking a much harder look at the business case for new investments, and as they go forward, they're bringing new levels of discipline to the projects, says Michael Schroeck, Partner and Global Business Intelligence Leader at IBM Global Business Services.

"Encouragingly, companies are continuing to invest in BI, but maybe instead of five initiatives within a large corporation, they might whittle that down to three," Schroeck says. "They're also setting up key milestone checkpoints throughout the projects to make sure that they're on time and on budget."

CUT WHERE YOU CAN

Before you consider cutting on the people side of the organization, you have duty to look at needless technology expenditures. In many cases, costs can be cut even without renegotiating with vendors.

Look for redundancies. One of the dangers of a decentralized approach to information management and business intelligence is that companies may not be aware of overlaps and redundancies. "One of my life sciences clients, for example, spends more than $100 million per year with one data provider," says Richard Cohen, Principal, Technology Integration Practice, Deloitte Consulting. "They are now going through the organization and looking for duplicative use of data across the organization."

Move to self-service. Technology consolidation and standardization can be a huge opportunity, particularly if you can retire licenses and move to user-friendly alternatives in the process. "A good amount of the cost of BI projects is on the development side," Cohen points out. "You'll be much better off if you can put tools in front of your users that let them do their own analysis and their own querying." On the other hand, you also have to build in safeguards so that new users can't formulate large queries that will shut down your system.

Retain comprehensive skills. Even with delays in investments and cuts in software and hardware costs, it's still tough to hit the 15 percent mark without personnel cuts. Thus, "alignment of staff is a big issue right now," says Cohen. Many companies have IT staff spread among multiple business units, he adds, "but they're now being asked to do it all with a slimmed-down, core group of people" shared across all departments. It's essential, says Cohen, that the core group offers comprehensive skills -- architectural skills, development skills, data management skills and so on -- so your company doesn't suffer from a BI and information management brain drain. MAKE THE MOST OF WHAT YOU HAVE

A running theme at Gartner's BI Summit was closing the gap between expectations for business intelligence and business value actually delivered. If there's a shortfall within your organization, it's time to reassess.

Compare your organization against maturity models. Analyst reports and vendor white papers offer a ready source of best-practice recommendations and organizational maturity models. Schroeck advises firms that are struggling to do an assessment on three key dimensions:

Focus on fewer, more-important metrics. Lots of organization are report- and KPI-happy, but it could be that too much BI is getting in the way of intelligence. For example, one large retailer had a list of literally hundreds of "key metrics" that it used to run the business. When executives boiled things down from a customer-centric perspective, they ended up with just 15 key metrics and it completely transformed store performance, says Rogalski of Accenture.

"The retail salespeople used to come out of meetings thinking about internally competitive, store-by-store rankings and financial metrics, half of which they didn't understand," Rogalski explains. "Now they come out of their morning chalk talks and they are excited about getting customers to expand their basket or addressing customer needs so they get a top score on customer-service ratings."

In most cases, you want to look at no more than five to 10 key measurements, adds Cohen of Deloitte Consulting. "If you're looking at more than that, you may be looking at something you can't take action on," he says. "As you review your dashboards and scorecards, you really have to look at what you want to measure and what impact those measures have on the organization."

DEFEND THE SPEND

Tell the story, and don't be afraid to be modest -- or bold. Are your information management and BI initiatives unsung heroes? Consider a "road show" to get the word out on programs, highlights and achievements to data," Rogalski advises. "Point out how hard it was to pull together key reports and metrics before you had the system, and draw on available statistics and sound bites from analysts and research reports that help tell the story."

The most important thing is to win or retain funding, so don't get worked up if somebody on the business side characterizes a wanted BI upgrade as "a technical thing" or "an add-on" to a larger project. "Take advantage of what you can get," says Rogalski, "but don't be afraid to ask for funding, either. Now is the perfect time to stress the need for better insight."

If you can show people what you're trying to accomplish as well as where you are and where you are going in the context of a roadmap, it can be very compelling.

Don't lose sight of long-range goals.

Even if you're focusing on short-term objectives for now, don't work at cross purposes with long-term plans and goals. "One of the biggest challenges that companies continue to have is supporting multiple, stand-alone reporting environments," says Schroeck of IBM Global Business Services. "You don't want to get into a position where you're building another silo because you're being driven by the economy."

In other words, model the information and chose tools and technologies that are scalable, flexible and compatible with long-range information management and BI plans. "This economy is going to turn," Schroeck concludes, "and as soon as it does, companies are going to be looking to BI more than ever to help drive the growth strategy."