The 5 Ways A BI Strategy Can Help CIOs Make Decisions

Business intelligence strategies are not just about deploying big data solutions and providing timely reports & figures. To qualify as a valid business intelligence strategy, it must assist CIOs in making the best decisions for their enterprises. How can better business intelligence empower CIOs to make smarter decisions?

Bi-Survey.com¹ conducted a survey in which 2600 BI users participated. 47% of the participants admitted that the right BI strategy helped them make better decisions. Undertaking a BI project is not easy because many things go on under the hood to deliver the desired output. It involves a high degree of technical skills, work culture alignment between IT and business teams, security and regulatory compliances, and much more than any other project you have done before.

How does BI inform better Decisions?

The modern world is a highly competitive space, and the right business intelligence (BI) strategy can help CIOs shore up the Companies' business decision-making skills. An effective BI strategy will assist the CIO in increasing the value of the company's data assets, allowing businesses to make better decisions.

A BI strategy will also assist businesses in understanding how their data is used, who is utilizing it, and what can better it. By incorporating data governance into your BI strategy, you can ensure that crucial business decision-makers access accurate information when they need it. The data governance program will also enable them to make informed decisions by providing a consistent view of the same business information across all departments in the organization.

Finally, by implementing an effective BI strategy, you can ensure those essential information assets are maintained so that they are always available when needed.

Data analytics is at the core of the BI strategy

Data analytics as a BI strategy helps reduce the risks in making business decisions and enables companies to make informed decisions from reliable data.

Data should be as up-to-date as possible, rather than looking back at historical data. In some cases, this can be in weeks or months, and sometimes minutes or seconds. It should also be reliable and verifiable. If you're working with external sources (for example, weather reports), ensure that you're using trusted sources that provide accurate information

BI strategy also helps to mean better-informed decisions by enabling managers to access relevant information quickly and easily.

It also means better-informed decisions by enabling managers to access relevant information quickly and easily. An advantage to BI is that it gathers data from multiple sources and assembles it into one place. This way, you can see how your company is doing across different departments, locations, or periods. With the stroke of a button, you may compare vital numbers like sales figures, revenues, or manufacturing rates. Easy-to-understand graphs or pivot tables visualize the data, which help you understand trends and make faster business decisions.

A good BI strategy allows your organization to view data from multiple sources in one place; this means:

• Improved visibility across the organization

• Better analysis of performance indicators

• Easier access to relevant information

Proper business planning starts with end-users who engage in the process and are confident in their decisions.

To start with, CIOs should align their BI strategy and business goals. It means ensuring that all of your departments—from sales to marketing to operations—are on the same page about what it takes to achieve those goals. For example, if you're trying to grow your market share, ensure that the marketing department understands how your organization prioritizes this goal.

The Single Version of Truth

Management can create an Excel spreadsheet dashboard for financial reports, convert it to an automated dashboard for risk management, and then make it available as a mobile dashboard for compliance management using a BI solution that works for everyone.

You can customize dashboards and data visualizations based on individual preferences and needs. For example, your IT department may need more granular data about technical operations to solve issues before they happen. On the other hand, your managers are interested in how their team's performance is against their objectives or KPIs. A good BI solution should provide you with the flexibility to design and share these dashboards across departments while maintaining similar dimensions. This factor will help compare results between different companies or regions easily.

Mapping of KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the drivers of any business. A survey by Science Direct² shows that KPIs are the key to transparency in the businesses. They can be mapped across multiple departmental silos and compared with one another using BI. This aids in the detection of inconsistencies that might otherwise go unreported, ensuring flawless business operations. This factor is particularly important for CIOs as it informs decisions that will better serve the organization. 

Conclusion

The CIO is a prominent member of the executive team, and with their role in business intelligence, they have become an essential player in ascertaining the businesses' future. They are now actively pushing for BI strategies that can help the organization in decision-making. With the growth of business intelligence and BI strategies, a new wave of ideas will help businesses grow together with technology.

CIOs should select tools, which would easily integrate with the existing infrastructure and have the ability to deliver reports and analytics on time. It would be easier for CIO to manage BI tools based on their preference. 

With so much data, it is critical to have a meaningful BI strategy and it should target the right data. CIOs need to have a clear picture of what information is relevant and use this information for strategic reasons.