Business Intelligence, Country Music, Peter Drucker and You!

April 27, 2008

I get a lot of emails every day! I got this one that I didn’t delete and then felt strong enough to comment on it.
“In a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), nearly 80% of executives said that a Business Intelligence strategy would improve their company’s ability to enhance customer service and react quickly to market changes. However, fewer than 15% felt their organization has applied best practices to its use of business data.”
I love music. I love all types of music. I am not a Country Music fan though. I am a fan of Country Music Song Titles. There’s a title to a country music song (no music yet!) that I made up about the business problem that is one of the biggest problems in the entire economy. Here’s what it is: Companies go to great lengths to hire top notch people. Then they give them business responsibilities and the authority to act on the business responsibilities. Then, they don’t give them the complete tools to get the right analysis to get to the “right decision.” So, here’s my song title:

“You don’t know what you have done by the time you’ve already done it”

Is that right out of Nashville or what? Decision-makers and categorically speaking, Knowledge Workers” are nowadays tasked with making a lot of very timely and important decisions. After we have them on-board with what famous business professor, Dr. Peter Drucker, says is the 20% unique aspects of the business (he professed that 80% of all businesses are the same)…once they really gain expertise and experience in the business, we don’t necessarily give them the right tools to analyze their data and the general performance of the business. Perhaps another song title goes like this:

“I know she knows, but I can’t get it out of her”

Certainly, what we mean here is that the data is in the system. The person just doesn’t know how to get it out!” Conceptual thinking skills are not the norm in the Information technology world. Operating software systems, running networks, ensuring security, closing double-entry book keeping systems, and the normal “run the business” part of IT constitutes a majority of the activity. How’s this for another song:

“His left brain won’t talk to his right brain, so he won’t answer the door.”

OK, perhaps that one didn’t work….

The lack of relevant facts or real understanding in the decision making process is so apparent to person trying to sort through all of the data that surrounds them. Recently, I read 2 more statistics:

• More information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000
• Corporate data is doubling every 3 years

I am myself, “what happens to all of this data?” Another song title?

“I spent too much time looking for my data when the decision timeframe has come and gone”

Gartner calls it the “Fact Gap.” It’s kind of a “decision gridlock” which even with gas at $ 4.00 per gallon or higher is what we are going to see this summer on the construction-laden highways!

So, how do you figure out whether there is a Fact Gap in your organization or business? Perhaps there’s truly is a Fact Gap in your business? Here are some potential symptoms for this:

Excessive discounting
• Expensive marketing programs that do not result in revenue enhancement
• New product introductions are less successful than expected
• Low inventory turns per year

From a knowledge worker viewpoint, you can start to see symptoms where decision making that is unscientific resulting in …

• Inefficiency in production
• Missed opportunities
• Inability to react proactively
• Lost market share
• Excessive expense
• Lost revenue and profits
• Customer dissatisfaction

Perhaps one last song title will provide a summary of my topic:

“She turned data into information and he didn’t even know he had the answers!”

If we can turn data into information and empower business decision makers with the information they need to run the enterprise, there’s certainly a true opportunity to gain competitive advantage.

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