5 Steps to Creating Your Business Intelligence Roadmap

Are you struggling to determine the direction of your organization’s Business Intelligence strategy? If so, the first step you need to take is creating a roadmap that can help guide you. Business Intelligence (BI) has become an essential ingredient for corporate success in recent years, thanks to the vast amounts of data that modern businesses collect. However, without a concise plan, all the data in the world won’t help your business achieve its objectives. Here are 5 steps to help you create your Business Intelligence roadmap:

Step 1: Determining Business Objectives

The first step towards creating a Business Intelligence roadmap is determining company objectives. Every business has unique goals, whether they are driven by revenue, the need to meet regulatory requirements, or the desire to enhance the customer experience. Taking these objectives into account, companies must design a BI roadmap that can help them achieve their target outcomes.

Step 2: Assessing Information Technology Infrastructure

Once you have a clear understanding of your company’s objectives, you need to assess your information technology infrastructure to determine if it can support your BI initiative. You can take stock of current applications, databases, and business processes to determine whether or not investment in new systems or software is necessary. You may also want to consider integrating your existing data with external data, like social media or transactional data, to get more insights.

Step 3: Identifying and Managing Data Sources

Now it is time to identify and manage data sources. Databases can contain a wide variety of information, from structured data to unstructured data. Identifying all the relevant data sources can help provide a comprehensive overview of the data that your company already has. By managing the data, you can ensure that it is accurate, consistent, and reliable. It is essential to take data governance seriously.

Step 4: Setting Up BI Tools and Infrastructure

In this step, you should identify and deploy the tools and infrastructure that support the BI roadmap. This might include setting up data warehouse or data marts to provide business users with a single source of data. Another requirement might be to deploy new metrics or key performance indicators that can help track progress towards objectives. There are several BI tools to choose from, such as Tableau, Power BI, or QlikView, depending on your specific requirements, budget, and infrastructure.

Step 5: Implementing and Governance

The final step is implementing and governance. The team must ensure that the BI roadmap is well-executed to maximize the value of your BI investments. Doing this requires a governance model that can facilitate BI adoption across the organization. It includes the development of proper training, communication, and documentation frameworks that will help ensure that BI requirements align with corporate goals.

In conclusion, Business Intelligence is a long-term project that requires careful planning and execution. Following the above steps will help you create a comprehensive Business Intelligence roadmap that will provide a solid foundation for your BI strategy. Remember, analysis is more than a technology. It is a business approach that requires engaging people, developing processes, and deploying technology. Implementing your Business Intelligence programs through these five steps will help you develop and execute a successful and sustainable BI strategy.