Many managers believe that introducing a BI solution into their organization will instantly transform into an "intelligent" business that automatically answers all their questions. For example, the manager would know what actions to take to operate the business properly.
They would want alerts to be automatically marked in the system, such as flagging customers to contact, alerts about orders likely to be delayed, alerts about reasons for profit declines, and many other examples. The assumption that the BI solution, data warehouse, and reports will automatically provide the necessary insights is usually incorrect[1].
BI solutions enable employees (those with intelligence) to exercise judgment based on the data received in reports and act accordingly. Through human intelligence and the data obtained from BI solution reports, the business can be operated properly, allowing employees to continue developing it. BI solutions are tools that must be used with the organization's employees.
However, some argue that once an automatic solution is implemented, there's no need for additional "input" from people, as the rules are predefined. Therefore, human elements can be removed from the system. This is only partially true, as relying solely on the automatic solution isn't practical in the long run. The reason for this is that changes occur within the business itself. Additionally, changes are happening due to external influences on the company, such as changes in the global economy. These changes necessitate adjusting the BI solution implementation in the business, which requires human intervention from the organization's employees.
There are two challenges in implementing BI solutions:
Need for employee cooperation - Proper implementation of the solution requires using knowledge about the business that also resides in employees' minds. These are usually the employees who need to work with this solution. For many employees, this can cause concern about their future in the organization, potentially leading to resistance to using the system.
Overly high expectations from the BI solution - Managers want the solution to solve all their problems. However, as the business constantly changes, providing a solution that fits over time is challenging. Therefore, there's a need to ensure proper planning of long-term and ongoing processes in the business before implementation begins.
The assumption is that similar to the use of internet search engines that were initially foreign and alienating to users and are now a natural solution for finding information, in the future, employees will become more accustomed to using BI solutions and see the contribution of this solution to the business. To this end, BI solutions need to become more user-friendly so that these solutions become part of employees' work routine, similar to email as part of the work routine. Like email, access to the company's data information and the ability to apply human intelligence to the data to answer business questions should also become second nature to the employee. Perhaps the solution will come from future technological developments such as SQL Server 2008 R2, Gemini, and Office 2010.
In conclusion, implementing "business intelligence" solutions in an organization goes hand in hand with the human intelligence of employees and cannot work in isolation from each other. Making BI solutions more user-friendly is part of an array to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these solutions in the organization.
[1] There is a small percentage of activities where automatic BI is possible (such as setting hotel room rates based on time of day, occupancy, and more). Still, these cases are exceptional and do not represent the norm, as one might hope.
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