Business intelligence (BI) is designed to provide organizations with data-based information to inform decision-making; however, the implementation and use of BI systems can pose challenges such as data integration, data quality, user adoption, data security, scalability, and technical complexity. Therefore, business users may encounter different and misleading results in relation to key performance indicators and other similarly named business metrics. When companies don't get the results they expected with their new BI solution and the provider seems unwilling or unable to help their customers realize the full potential of their solution, it's often due to a lack of understanding. However, this must be weighed against data security and privacy issues and the risk that business users will perpetuate inaccurate findings.
In many cases, the challenges begin with obtaining approval and funding for a business intelligence program and developing a solid BI strategy that meets business requirements and can deliver the promised return on investment. Records of user activities and requests should be continuously monitored to identify potential adoption issues and issues related to business intelligence tools. A poor user experience is often accompanied by lengthy training periods, poor task completion, and a direct impact on overall productivity. When a manufacturing company invests in a BI solution designed for service-base companies, problems are likely to arise.
According to Nair et al., training and change management programs related to BI initiatives also require the participation of company executives and managers to succeed. The growth of data sources means that many organizations need to gather data for analysis from various databases, big data systems, and business applications, both on-premises and in the cloud. The traditional approach provides information to business users through dashboards, reports and portals, with well-defined workflows, Thorndike says. Fielding says he takes into account the collective interests of Sungard users when working with business units on their BI needs.
BI and data management teams must eliminate silos and harmonize the data they contain to achieve the desired impact on business decision-making, he added. In addition to standardized metrics and dashboards, companies must allow users to define and publish their own metrics. Companies must ensure that all available data repositories, including databases, spreadsheets, cloud applications, social networks, IoT devices, and ETLs that contain important information to digest and analyze, can be integrated with the tools adopted to allow senior management to have a complete overview of the data and to make better decisions based on complete data and not on a subset. Another set of BI challenges focuses on changes in the way business intelligence tools are used in organizations to guide business decisions.
