The democratization of data: A definition

The democratization of data is the process of expanding business information and the tools to analyze it out to a much broader audience than traditionally has had access. In most companies, the IT department has long been the gatekeeper of BI and analytical tools, not because of a desire to control information but out of necessity. The tools available were simply too complex for the average employee to use effectively, and analyzing data was a cumbersome and complicated process. As a result, reporting was most often done to satisfy the needs of only a handful of top executives. Evolving and complex technology landscapes compounded these limitations, as disconnected systems made it more difficult to get a unified view of the business. Many companies still struggle to get a single version of the truth across all areas of the enterprise.

These obstacles have put barriers around organizational data that have been extremely difficult to breach, with the result being that employees often make decisions in isolation. It’s not so much that decision making has been flawed in a wholesale way. Businesses have, after all, been working around their data issues for quite some time. It’s more that decision making has been less than optimal and that opportunities now exist to improve it dramatically.

The quest to take advantage of this potential is driving the democratization of data, with efforts to put information directly into the hands of employees who need it being delivered through a variety of channels. Although BI and analytical tools are leading the charge, they are not the only vehicles being used. In an analysis of major technology drivers in 2013 and beyond, Gartner references a concept they have named the “Nexus of Forces,” which they define as “…the convergence and mutual reinforcement of four interdependent trends: social interaction, mobility, cloud, and information. The forces combine to empower individuals as they interact with each other and their information through well-designed ubiquitous technology.

It is this convergence that is allowing analytics and business intelligence to be used in new and game-changing ways—some that represent a relatively minor evolution in technology but major advancements in terms of impact on the business; others that might have sounded like science fiction even a few years ago. Below are just a few examples of what is now possible:

• End-user analysis across the enterprise—Business intelligence and analytics tools have become increasingly user-friendly and less complex, giving end users the ability to easily analyze, track, and present business data in highly consumable ways. Employees can now run existing reports, create new ones, build dashboards, and more, without having a high degree of technical skill. These advancements have allowed BI and analytics to evolve from technologies of the few to resources for the many at a fairly rapid pace.
• Mobile access to business intelligence—BI tools are now increasingly being combined with mobile devices to give employees anytime, anywhere access to business information through both customized and packaged mobile applications. One of the key differences between the types of information that have traditionally been available via mobile devices (primarily email) and emerging BI access is that the convergence of technologies (like BI, mobile, and integration) allows employees to go from “knowing something” to “doing something.” They no longer just have remote access to information. They can take action on it as well.
• In-context business intelligence—In-context business intelligence is information delivered directly and automatically to end users as they are in the process of doing their jobs. This capability is particularly powerful, primarily because it eliminates the need for employees to sift through large volumes of information that are often stored across multiple systems. Instead, BI technology senses the type of task in process and automatically displays role-based, relevant data. For example, a finance department employee processing an invoice might have that vendor’s payment history for the last three months automatically displayed. Or a manufacturing supervisor might receive alerts about the likely need for maintenance on a critical piece of equipment in the middle of a major production run for a key customer. Because employees have the ability to specify the type of information they want to receive, they can combine data to gain new insights and see it exactly when and where it’s needed, helping them capture opportunities and mitigate risks.
• Alerts and exceptions—Alerts and exceptions also fall into the category of business intelligence delivered automatically to employees, but the focus in this case is preventative. Systems can be set up to monitor particular areas of a business based on rules that stakeholders define, and then notify them at a desktop or through a mobile device when exceptions occur. Like mobile access to BI tools, this capability gives employees both information and the ability to take action, with the goal of responding quickly to potential problems and improving business performance.
• Integration with social business—Companies are still finding their footing with social business technology, but popularity and adoption are growing rapidly. The power of social business lies with integrating collaboration, core organizational systems (like ERP or supply chain management), information, and delivery mechanisms to allow employees to work in new ways. This technology is very much in line with efforts to democratize business data because of its heavy focus on collaboration and its ability to give employees access to data in a broader range of ways. In just one example, social business technologies can be used to “follow” particular aspects of a business, ranging from a piece of equipment to a top customer. When activities related to that item occur, employees can be automatically notified—wherever they are. Social business technologies are also designed to capture employee communications that are normally lost through vehicles like email or instant messaging. This allows companies to retain vital corporate knowledge and get a better understanding of the how and why around their decision-making processes.

All of these capabilities are designed to make the vast amounts of information now available to businesses valuable by putting it into the hands of the people who need it the most, which is the very essence of democratizing data.

The next frontier of competitive differentiation

The driver for this level of innovation in the BI and analytics space is an old one—the on-going quest for the edge that will set a business apart. In an environment where competitive differentiation is increasingly difficult to come by, information is seen as having the potential to be “the next big thing.”

In a recent Forrester Wave report, they noted:

For the foreseeable future, we will compete on information. In addition to its traditional role as a financial, management, and compliance and risk reporting platform, BI now has a much more important role. All products and services continue to become more commoditised in our global economy. As a result, it’s becoming harder and harder for enterprises to differentiate and compete on quality and margins. But if there are two businesses that are marketing and selling identical products or services and one has more insight into its customers’ behavior—or even if two share the same insights but one gets that information a day sooner—that business has a much higher chance.

The belief in BI’s potential is reflected in technology spending priorities. In a Gartner survey on CIO technology priorities for 2013, business intelligence and analytics were at the top of the list. Among those same CIOs, 55% cited big data and analytics as the technologies most likely to be disruptive (the latest industry buzz word for game-changing).

Competitive differentiation from BI and analytics initiatives can come in a number of different forms, as CIOs hope to realize benefits like:

• Faster response times across many areas of the business. This could mean an improved ability to recognize and take advantage of opportunities that more sophisticated analysis can reveal, proactive prevention of problems, and more.
• Increased productivity, achieved by putting information at employees’ fingertips, dramatically reducing the amount of time they have to spend looking for data, helping them prevent mistakes, removing IT as the gatekeeper of business analysis, and allowing people to make better decisions faster.
• A new level of customer service, which is different than the somewhat ubiquitous goal of providing better customer service. BI and analytics can give companies the ability to market to and interact with customers in new ways that distinguish them from the competition. Personalization is a big push and one area where advancing BI technologies are making a significant difference. However, democratizing data is empowering employees to deliver a different level of customer service, as well. Sales reps can easily run reports and dig down into details from the road to make sure customer needs are being met. Support representatives can automatically have customer information displayed on their screens, allowing them to make customers feel recognized and important. The possibilities are virtually limitless. Imagine the opportunity to serve customers more effectively through 360-degree visibility into their overall relationship with your company, so that you can ensure each interaction with them across your organization is consistent and that you maximize every exchange.
• Better decision making, achieved by giving employees not just more information, but the right information and putting their decisions in context. Employees no longer have to make decisions in isolation or based on only a limited view of the business.
• Improved strategic planning, through closer linkage of business plans to strategic objectives. Companies can now generate more accurate forecasts and plans, easily analyze performance against those plans on a continuing basis, and make adjustments that increase the likelihood of achieving company goals.

The bottom line is that BI has the potential to positively influence a wide range of areas and has transitioned from being disconnected from business processes to driving them, allowing for decision making that’s both better and faster. Executives will be keeping a close eye on the results, with high expectations for what can be achieved.

Building a BI strategy: Taming data to make analytics consumable and valuable

With all of this innovation, it’s easy to wonder: “What’s holding companies back”? As is often the case with technological advancement, the market is on pace with the progression of a subset of businesses, but ahead of the curve for others. Challenges vary by company type and industry and will be based not just on the size or complexity of your business, but also on your level of sophistication around BI and analytics. Often, larger companies have a more difficult time achieving an enterprise-wide BI strategy than smaller businesses with fewer resources because their environments are more complicated. We’ll cover strategies for companies in varying stages of BI adoption later in this section. First, let’s address an issue that nearly all organizations face: integration.

Integration has long been the bane of the enterprise software industry. Evolving capabilities and a rapidly changing software vendor market have left most companies with incredibly complex technology landscapes. Businesses end up with information in silos, a limited ability to get a unified view of the enterprise, and systems (particularly transactional ones like ERP) that are so complex that average business users have little chance of being able to uncover and manipulate the data that they house.

Recently, however, the technology available to address the integration issue has experienced a significant period of acceleration, giving rise to a new breed of what is commonly known as middleware. Built using an open architecture approach that relies on industry-standards like XML, rather than vendor-based standards, this technology provides a flexible, lightweight framework for quickly and easily connecting disparate systems without making them codependent. Systems can be made compatible, new technologies can be introduced, and existing software can be upgraded or even fail without taking down other applications.

This is good news for companies working to implement a cohesive BI strategy; it allows them to get a unified view of the business and analyze information from all key systems. No analytics strategy can be complete without a comprehensive integration plan; in fact, it should be a major component of any BI strategy. Whether you start small by testing integration of just a couple of systems or go enterprise-wide, you’ll see the benefits not just in the area of analytics, but across your business.

With integration factored into the picture, additional strategies will be driven largely by your position on the BI evolutionary scale. Most organizations fall into one of three general categories:

Tactical

Definition

Companies in this phase are still focused primarily on tracking and measuring projected business performance against actuals. Efforts to assess the “how and why” of decision making are overshadowed by the need to meet basic reporting and regulatory requirements. Often, time-consuming, manual processes and outdated technology are the primary culprits.

Key strategies

• Set clear goals for your analytics initiative—Business intelligence has the potential to positively impact so many areas of the business that initiatives can easily expand and get out of control. Start by setting a clear and achievable set of goals and stick with them.
• Get buy-in from key stakeholders—Executives can occasionally view BI initiatives as an invasion of their territory and feel threatened by what they see as increased scrutiny of areas that they own. In reality, BI generally increases their ability to understand their part of the business and positively influence its performance. Including them early in the process and getting a clear understanding of the current way things are done will be essential for turning skeptics into advocates.
• Start small—Begin by identifying areas where lack of information or inaccurate data is causing the greatest pain, analyze the causes, and identify an approach for addressing that portion of your business alone. When planned carefully and executed well, the results of these initiatives usually speak for themselves, giving you a solid foundation on which to expand your efforts.

Strategic

Definition

Businesses in the strategic phase have mastered the basics of tracking business performance and are using data to steer their businesses, rather than just measuring where they’ve been. Often, however, companies in the strategic phase are restricted by the complexity of the BI and analytics tools available to them, putting IT in the role of gatekeeper and limiting in-depth use of business information to a select group of executives.

Key strategies

• Expand the availability of user-driven BI and analytics tools through the use of packaged BI solutions—Depending on when you last investigated this category, you may see some significant advancement in what’s available. Packaged BI tools are an ideal option for many businesses and can often deliver a faster time to value than custom projects. Toolsets have become increasingly user-friendly, allowing employees without technical knowledge to easily analyze and manipulate data. Your employees and your IT department will thank you.
• Reduce the amount of time that employees spend finding information—This will largely be achieved by strategies like those mentioned above, including the delivery of in-context BI and automatic alerts, as well as more sophisticated enterprise search capabilities. The less time your employees have to spend finding information, the more they can spend analyzing it—and using the results to help improve business performance.
• Provide a foundation for the long-term—Make sure any investments in new technology are flexible enough to meet changing needs over the long haul and that they’re supported by sustainable vendor investments that will result in on-going innovation.

Driver

Definition

Companies in the driver phase have mastered the art of collecting information and moved on to the process of how best to take advantage of it. These companies use business intelligence as the foundation for critical business decisions not just at the executive level but across the business, working to put analytics into the hands of everyday users. As volumes of information increase, however, and opportunities for accessing large amounts of data become commonplace, these businesses must find the right path for managing it.

Key strategy

Investigate emerging technologies that can take your BI efforts to the next level. Two that you may want to consider include social business and big data. No discussion around managing extremely large volumes of data would be complete without the inclusion of big data technology, which is growing rapidly in popularity.

At the most basic level, big data refers to volumes of information that are extremely large and growing. The challenge comes when the volume gets so big that it can’t be effectively managed in a traditional batch processing way. If it takes many hours or even days to process large volumes of data, the information quickly loses its value. Big data solutions are designed to turn the information tsunami into an information goldmine.

Questions remain about big data and its value. However, because of its potential, companies at the highest level of BI sophistication that are struggling with large volumes of data should consider proceeding with a slow and cautious approach. It’s recommended that you start with your own data and master its manipulation before giving in to the temptation to buy data from enticing new sources like Facebook or Amazon. Just as you can’t remove the salt from your stew, you can end up living with the consequences of importing large volumes of data before the business is ready for a very long time to come.

Infor Reporting. Use this extensive collection of pre-built reports right out of the box to simplify your work. You get a clear starting point for quick and easy reporting with predefined templates that are styled for the latest user interface standards, including packaged reports for areas such as production, general ledger, project management, purchasing, sales, and more. You can also easily build ad hoc, custom reports without relying on IT.

Infor BI. With an industry-specific assortment of prebuilt reports and dashboards, Infor BI Business Analytics gives you immediate access to the detailed information and analysis you need to make effective plans and decisions. It also includes an easy-to-use report building utility that allows ordinary business users to create reports without having to go to IT to request them. It simplifies and accelerates the reporting process in a way that fosters clear, consistent use of data throughout your company.

Infor Analytics applications for enterprise performance management. Infor also offers pre-built solutions that extend the usage of the BI platform and help you improve your enterprise, no matter what industry you operate in. Link your corporate strategy to your operational process and generate insights and information that can be used to increase your productivity, control costs, and drive growth. With financial performance management, strategic planning, software, and many other powerful tools, each solution features highly focused content, best suited to a specific business or industry. You will enjoy greater visibility and control across your enterprise, helping you effectively plan and drive your company’s future.

The Infor Analytics technology foundation: Infor ION

Infor’s Intelligent Open Network (ION) technology is the foundation supporting the power of Infor Analytics. Infor ION is purpose-built middleware that makes connecting disparate systems simple and straightforward. By drawing on open standards and widely supported data formats, this technology delivers integration out of the box, along with the ability to leverage information from many systems simultaneously.

Infor ION generates value through a collection of interrelated technologies that combine to form a platform for faster growth and better performance across the enterprise. The elements of the Infor ION platform include:

Enterprise connectivity—The connective technology behind Infor ION draws on a completely new approach to integration. In the past, enterprise integration took a hardwired approach, similar to the old, analog telephone network. It was appropriate for systems of an earlier era, but is too expensive and inflexible for today’s requirements. Infor ION connectivity technology builds on the kind of freedom and agility represented by Internet technologies—flexible connections, open formats, and industry standard protocols. As a result, Infor ION supports advanced capabilities right out of the box for rapid integration, top performance, and easy scalability.

Business process workflow—Because Infor ION communicates through an industry standard, publish-and-subscribe process, the information it transmits can be harnessed to support advanced workflow and business process management. You can design and implement workflows in Infor ION to fit your business process so that you can standardize, monitor, and document the tasks that make the biggest difference to your business.

Event management—Infor ION solutions can send alerts and route approvals to your desktop or to a mobile application to keep you fully informed and involved in your business process, no matter where you’re located, at any time of day.

Mobile—Infor Motion, our mobile technology, is built on the same technologies that drive Infor ION integration, workflow, and business intelligence, which means you can implement a mobile strategy as a natural extension of your integration technology. You won’t need to integrate mobile support as yet another unconnected technology because you’ll have a seamless technology platform that encompasses the desktop, web, office, shop floor, field, and your favorite mobile device. You’ll also be able to easily manage access to mobile applications with central provisioning capabilities. You can drag-and-drop to allow or restrict mobile access and quickly cut off permissions when changes occur, making management of mobile access simple and straightforward, while keeping your information secure.

Conclusion

Business intelligence and analytics solutions are widely considered by CIOs and analysts to have great potential for delivering measurable, bottom-line improvements to the enterprises that are best prepared to take advantage of them. Results to date and technology investment patterns indicate that these technologies will be a priority for top-performing companies for the foreseeable future. By taking steps to democratize data, companies can put the power of analytics into the hands of every day users and dramatically increase the value of information that is often ready and waiting to be exploited.