Eight Ways to Avoid a BI Scare This Halloween

by Darryl K. Taft

If you’re like most organizations, your data originates from numerous disparate sources and is cobbled together to create a big data monster. Dealing with a data Frankenstein is a scary thing. Being diligent about data cleansing, integrity and integration standards is key to creating an accurate, helpful picture of your data and avoiding a monster that terrorizes the enterprise.

Today’s business world is lightning fast. There’s no room for slow moving, non-mobile data analysis in the 21st century world, and those who can’t keep up are quick to become data zombies. Avoid the undead state by ensuring that your BI and analytics solution enables up-to-the-minute mobile business intelligence so that you can get your info wherever you may be—on a smartphone, laptop or tablet.

If you find that your regular reporting processes are sucking the lifeblood out of your day and keeping you up all hours of the night, you’ve got a reporting vampire on your hands. Don’t despair. Reporting processes can be simplified and streamlined with the help of an advanced BI and analytics platform and self-service dashboard so that executives can dedicate more time to business-benefiting activities. Consider it your clove of garlic.

BI spending may be on the rise, but many companies are still limiting their deployments to analysts and other power users. While this provides the framework of a BI and analytics strategy, ignoring the data needs of all enterprise stakeholders means a corporate BI plan is only a skeleton of what it could be. To flesh out your company’s BI bones, ensure your solution is robust and flexible enough to supply all types of users with accurate information—no matter when, how or where they need it.

These days, it’s easy to fall victim to a data visualization spell. Eye-catching data visualizations can be useful tools, but if they are not built on solid data, they can also be nothing more than bewitching visuals that ultimately lead the user to danger. Ensuring the integrity and accuracy of your data is a critical first step to keeping data visualizations helpful and avoiding the curses they may carry.

If features such as self-service analytics, BI apps and customer-facing BI seem futuristic, you’re stuck in the dark in a BI tomb. Don’t let an outdated, ancient BI platform limit your possibilities. Escape the BI mummy and consider a system that facilitates data sharing with users across your organization, instead of keeping insights under wraps.

Data governance is an essential component of an effective data management strategy. Without it, you risk losing control of your information and seeing your data transform into an uncontrollable beast. You can reduce your fear of full (data) moons, however, by ensuring that you have defined clear data governance guidelines and have the tools needed to support and enforce them at the outset of projects. Taking this step will help organizations avoid the bite of a wild data animal.

The scary thing about bad data is that it can easily alter your BI insights, and very quickly, without even knowing it, executives could be basing important business decisions on inaccurate information. Don’t let your data insights be led astray by a BI goblin. Ensure that your BI and analytics platform features real-time data quality management and profiling capabilities to help ensure the consistency, completeness and accuracy of your data.