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August 28, 2007
BI University
My company (IBM Global Business Service) is trying to organize an educational initiative (BI University) that will provide learning and networking platform for our BI professionals. Some firms already have this kind of internal BI training and maybe some don't, but there are many potential benefits that can be harvested from running this type of internal educational program.
1) Increase Expertise. Our service area will further deepen its expertise in BI. Senior consultants will take an ownership for each BI topic, and they will get a chance to further refine their BI expertise during the process of preparing and teaching other fellow, entry-level BI consultants. Having an expertise in BI field is a must, and by simply increasing the level of expertise, we can build more trust from our clients.
2) Best Selling Tool. Expertise attracts more potential clients. McKinsey and Company's does not put its name in any of the ads such as newspaper, online banner, television, etc. What they do is to publish books, journals, and organize conferences. Namely, by focusing on their expertise and adding values to others first, it indirectly attracts its potential clients. McKinsey does not approach them. They do. Like old saying ... don't chase after this fickle bee, focus on being a beautiful flower, then it will come.
3) Networking Opportunity. This educational initiative provides a great networking opportunity for our BI professionals. We perhaps have more than 100 consultants in our BI division yet people in our service area do not know one another well unless they are in a same project. This educational program will attract people with similar interest and provide a natural environment to let them get connected.
We are still in a very infant stage of preparing this educational initiative and perhaps could get some invaluable insights from BEyeBlog experts here. So far we are planning to offer the following courses. If you see any other important BI/BPM topics missing or have other important advice in running this program successfully, please provide your insight here or to willcho@yahoo.com. Very Grateful.
1) Activity Based Costing Management
2) Intro to Performance Management
3) Planning and Budgeting
4) Financial Modeling
5) Earned Value Management
6) Cognos General Training
7) Hyperion General Training
8) Hyperion Performance Based Budgeting Training/Demo
Posted by William Cho at 7:45 AM | Comments (0)
August 6, 2007
BI Task Force
I have seen some wise companies formulating a BI task force, comprised of people from IT, business, and senior leadership, whose main goal is to ensure the successful implementation and deployment of BI solution.
Short term thinking might see such BI task force as an extra, unnecessary overhead to the company, but long term thinking sees such task force as an essential ingredient to BI success, which will eventually reward the company handsomely.
SAS further enhances the importance of BI task force.
"Organizations with Business Intelligence Competency Centers (BICCs) exhibit a significantly higher commitment to information management best practices, which in turn leads to improved financial results. BICCs comprise cross-functional teams from IT and business and drive consistent BI deployments; ease BI management and implementation; support BI and performance management initiatives that span multiple departments; help standardize methodologies, definitions, processes, tools and technologies; and enhance BI skills." - SASCOM (third quarter 2007),
Many BI projects lose its initial passion and ambition because no one really takes the BI ownership until the end of the BI deployment. They often fail to realize that each BI implementation requires a constant effort in pushing the project forward while ensuring a smooth communication between IT and business.
BI task force can ease the process.
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Resources:
COGNOS BICC - http://www.cognos.com/solutions/projects/bicc/index.html
SAS BICC - http://www.sas.com/consult/bicc.html
Posted by William Cho at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)
