Your SpotOn the IBM Cognos Edge

BI is the CIO's top technology priority; it has been for more just about a decade - so says Gartner Research.  There has been a mad scramble by the megavendors to acquire the top rung of the pure play BI solutions.  Upstart, "flexy", dashboard and reporting solutions have been making their presence felt.  So what exactly are we talking about here?

I recently had an opportunity to present to a senior team at an enterprise mapping/GIS firm.  The subject was on why they should care about business intelligence.  In researching the presention, my favorite definition for BI  that I came acrosse was the following from Microsoft:

BI simplifies information discovery and analysis, making it possible for decision-makers at all levels of an organization to more easily access, understand, analyze, collaborate, and act on information, anytime and anywhere.

I found this definition very compelling as it focuses on the desired outcome.  Wait a minute....!!!

What if broad-based understanding of BI focused on the desired outcome - useful, actionable information for everybody (regardless of role) in the organization - rather than the features and functionalities of the various BI tools and technologies?  

Looking through the other end of the kaleidoscope leads to some interesting thinking; information usage versus technology capability; what different information consumers in the organization require; do they get the complete picture; how does the information get to the people that need it; how often...  It also puts the traditional BI "bake offs" in an interesting light, as different information systems can play specific roles in a well planned information architecture (foreshadowing alert: we like geography).

Or maybe I'm just too hopped up on coffee!  Interesting or irrelevant?  Let us know what you think.

Chris