Business Intelligence (BI) is facing a significant challenge according to one of the industry’s leading thinkers and its ‘sexiness’ is causing the problem. Lecturer in Information Technology at Monash University, Mr. Peter O’Donnell suggests that major BI software vendors’ marketing messages are causing a ‘cult of the new’ within the industry because they are incorrectly portraying BI as new and exciting with products that represent the very latest that technology can offer. According to O’Donnell, there is a risk in these messages and that they play right into the hands of many IT professionals who like new things, love to upgrade and play with the latest toys. “The problem with the cult of the new is that it can blind us to the lessons of the past,” O’Donnell said. “What we mustn’t lose sight of is that BI has been around for several decades and the technology used hasn’t been a major constraint for a long time, it’s the business strategy behind the technology’s implementation that drives success,” he said.
C3 Business Solutions Strategy Director, Mr Conrad Bates, agrees with O’Donnell and said that business outcomes from BI are inextricably linked to the business strategy that drives a BI implementation rather than the actual technological capabilities. “What the new technologies can do is impressive and to some degree ‘sexy’ but the cornerstone of any successful BI project lies in the business strategy and data architecture that powers the technology’s outputs,” said Bates.“Business Intelligence is not about technology, that’s really only the enabler, BI is about creating an accessible bank of analytics that allows the C‐suite to strategically drive productivity and profitability in an organisation,” he said, “only then can business intelligence create intelligent business.” After all business intelligence is altogether about human intelligence.