Enterprise Business Intelligence and analysis - Essay Example

As stated in the report, offering advanced technological features to casual users is a recipe for disaster. Casual users are information users who are interested only in the reports and not in how the tools and databases work. Therefore the factor of usability is the most important in increasing BI adoption among the casual users. The power users as information producers require more powerful analytical tools to develop reports and business views. Therefore the development of the BI infrastructure should be customized to the different groups of users.

Implementing a BI framework effectively is a process of change management. Therefore the top management has to communicate with the employees about the strategic importance of maximizing the use of BI. Unless there is support from the top management for using the BI framework, the employees will not be motivated to use the features and functionalities of business intelligence to the maximum extent. For this reason it is important to categorize the different requirements of power users and casual users and to communicate with them accordingly.

The communications framework is one of the most important tools in managing change and therefore it should be used by the top management in motivating the application of business intelligence. The power users are the more important users. . In order to maximize the effectiveness of the technology, the organization should be able to integrate BI into the existing architecture consisting of security, web servers and databases. Unless the BI system can be made compatible with the processes which are currently being used, its usability will be minimal.

The employees will be more willing to use BI if it has an interface that is similar to those that they are currently using. It is more important to bring the power users on board so that they can coordinate with IT personnel to optimize the delivery of the format to the rest of the enterprise. The management also has to purchase licenses. Therefore they should conduct an inventory of users to estimate the number of licenses required and thus reduce costs. Another way to reduce costs is to ensure fast performance.

It is more important to ensure fast performance among the casual users. However the power users should also emphasize upon fast performance in order to deliver timely information. This information should be based upon high-quality data. Maximization of the BI acceptance among employees in various business functions and hierarchy levels in enterprise operations entails the process of managing change. The critical success factor in change management is communications. Therefore the critical success factor is to consider how to create an effective communications framework between the top management and the employees.

As stated in the TDWI best practices report, this objective can be met by developing a marketing plan which can be delivered enterprise-wide through a variety of communications channels such as email, Web, meetings, events, posters, training, helpdesk etc. In this manner the value