Business Intelligence Strategy Checklist
A robust business intelligence (BI) strategy can accelerate your company’s growth and serve as a game changer – putting you ahead of the competition. But with so many tools available to facilitate a BI strategy, it’s hard to know where to start.
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence is a management strategy for using data to make decisions. Successful BI projects rely on thorough preparation, including clear processes, well-managed data, and governance policies. But before you decide on a technology platform, you need to check a few items off your preparedness list. This checklist will guide you through the essential steps to ensure your BI strategy is secure, scalable, and effective.
Getting Prepared to Use Business Intelligence
There are three main parts to leveraging a business intelligence strategy:
1. Data Governance
Data governance sets the rules for how data is managed, accessed, and controlled.
Data Governance Checklist:
What data are important to the business, and what is the sensitivity of that data?
Who can see what? What can and can’t be shared outside the organization?
What are the fundamental key performance indicators (KPIs) that are important to the business?
How are those KPIs calculated?
What is expected of the people using the data to run their portion of the business?
2. Data Cultivation
Data cultivation is how you collect and manage data, ensuring it’s accurate and timely.
Data Cultivation Checklist:
What are the sources of your data, and how it should be collected and stored?
What is the expected timeliness of organizational data?.
Who is responsible for data entry and management?
What standards are needed to ensure integrity of the data?
How should data be cleaned and transformed for reporting purposes?
3. Data Visualization tools
Data visualization like Power BI, transform raw data into actionable insights through interactive dashboards and reports. It’s how you see and use the data.
Data Visualization Checklist:
What reports are needed? Do different stakeholders need different dashboards?
How do you interact with and share reports?
Do your reports adequately enforce your governing policies and principles?
Are all of your KPIs correctly calculated and represented in your dashboards?
Clark Schaefer Consulting specializes in helping organizations build robust BI frameworks that drive growth and deliver actionable insights.
Contact us today to discuss your business intelligence needs and discover how we can empower your organization with smarter, data-driven decision-making.
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