Business Intelligence is a top priority for organizations around the world. The value of its promise is well known: BI can yield valuable insight that will help achieve competitive advantage, productivity gains, and cost savings. However, for many organizations, achieving this type of success is difficult; user adoption is low, politics and culture run deep, and BI programs can be derailed by factors beyond technology—often related to people and process.
To address these challenges, a team of BI professionals from leading organizations has come together to offer practical advice and proven practices for preparing a BI strategy that will help you achieve excellence in your initiative.
You will learn:
How to create a business alignment strategy that helps prioritize business requirements, demonstrates value, and generates a series of wins for your organization
How to create an organizational and cultural strategy that will navigate politics, organize, and communicate for success
How to deliver a technology strategy that will improve total cost of ownership, provide greater IT efficiencies, and address factors that hinder user adoption
About authors
John Boyer — John Boyer is manager of the BI Advisory Team at The Nielsen Company (www.nielsen.com). There, he oversees adoption, enablement, and internal consulting for all things BI. Before joining Nielsen, John spent several years as a BI architect and trusted advisor at IBM. After graduating from medical school, his aptitude, passion, and bedside manner took him first to a healthcare clinic, where he rose to Director of Finance and Information Systems. John has spent the past 15 years consulting in software development, business intelligence, and data warehousing. He is chair of the Illinois Cognos User Group. As a conference speaker, John has been invited to speak at a number of national events, including Information on Demand, Cognos Forum, and the Composite Software User Group.
Bill Frank — Bill Frank is the Manager, ITGF BI Practice, at Johnson & Johnson (www.jnj.com). He has more than 25 years of experience in decision support and business intelligence and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Bill has worked in several major companies, including AT&T, Time Warner, and most recently Johnson & Johnson. At J&J, Bill has played a key role in the development of BI solutions, organizational model, governance, and practices and in evangelizing BI across the enterprise. Bill is a founding member of the J&J BI Center of Practice and co-leads this 300-member internal group focused on leverage, communication, and sharing proven practices.Bill also serves as the liaison to the IBM Cognos executive, marketing, and technology teams. He teamed with other J&J teams to lead the creation of the IBM Cognos enterprise agreement and the shared environments that are key to supporting J&J's standardization and consolidation efforts. Currently, Bill is developing enterprise data warehouse and BI strategies to support the J&J Global Finance organization. He is also a member of the IBM BI Excellence Advisory Board and several other external organizations focused on BI technologies.
Brian Green — Brian Green is Manager of Business Intelligence and Performance Management at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (www.bcbst.com). He has 30 years of information management experience in the insurance industry, with expertise in process improvement and organizational development to align delivery of solutions with business strategy.
Tracy Harris — Tracy Harris is Senior Manager, BI Excellence, at IBM (www.ibm.com). She is responsible for chairing the BI Excellence Advisory Board and managing the BI Excellence Program and Champion initiative at IBM. These programs are designed to help organizations achieve success, business value, and excellence in their BI and performance management initiatives and are defined through the sharing of best practices, research, and guidance from industry leaders and subject-matter experts. Tracy has worked with Fortune 500® organizations and government organizations around the globe to gather and research best practices in achieving excellence, and she shares this research through workshops and speaking engagements worldwide on the topic.
Kay Van De Vanter — Kay Van De Vanter is an information management domain architect and enterprise BI architect for The Boeing Company (www.boeing.com), with more than 12 years of experience in IT and business intelligence areas. For the past seven years, she has led Boeing's Business Intelligence Competency Center team and has worked with several other key information management teams to drive the standardization and alignment of BI initiatives at Boeing. Kay has also collaborated with industry BI professionals, user groups, and teams to help drive innovation and quality in the BI tools used by Boeing. She is currently partnering with others to develop an enterprise BI and technology strategy in support of Boeing's business goals. Kay is a member of IBM's BI Excellence Advisory Board and BI Customer Advisory Board, as well as other external user groups focused on BI technologies and best practices.
John Boyer —
Bill Frank —
Brian Green —
Tracy Harris —
Kay Van De Vanter —
