Are they driven by real-time intelligence? Can you say for sure that everyone from customer service agents to C-level executives has access to the best possible information before they market to customers, adjust inventory and supply chains, or pursue new business strategies?
More than ever, companies need timely, in-depth insights if they are to remain competitive globally. But those insights can only come from better ways of accessing, organizing and interpreting information—in effect, from a “whole business” approach to analytics.
Thanks to the latest processors, information appliances and analytics tools, the underlying challenge is not technical. Rather, the path to smarter and more coordinated decision making faces process-oriented and culture-related roadblocks: silos of business information and a widespread shortage of analytical talent. Today’s business environment demands that organizations manage data as a strategic corporate resource for all of their business initiatives.
Organizations that achieve high performance through analytics do not simply patch a business intelligence or data warehouse program onto existing operations. Rather, they ask: Who needs what information to make the very best decisions? Which processes and governance are required to ensure that such information reaches the right person, in the right format and at the right time, anywhere in the enterprise?