"It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change ..." said Charles Darwin. No other single statement is more applicable to business intelligence (BI) initiatives than this.
Any BI initiative is a multiyear, multifunction business-oriented implementation with changing business scenarios and associated complications and nuances. When we add on the dimension of outsourcing, the nuances and complications need more thought and deeper attention. These eight key mantras hold the key to successful BI outsourcing.
Develop the Right Mind-Set
Most people often think that "BI projects are different from other IT projects" and hence feel that BI projects cannot be outsourced. Get out of this mind-set first. The common rules and mantras of outsourcing apply to BI initiatives too.
A strong executive commitment and a shared vision is the key to success. Maintaining all the core thinking and critical work on site and outsourcing or offshoring the no-brainers in a factory setting mode to a partner will just lead to failure. Transparency of the vision and shared milestones and end goals is critical, along with special attention to the nuances.
One can begin outsourcing if you are sure that quality at lower cost can be made a reality. Throw out the myopic view that "unimportant" work gets outsourced.
Choose the Right Partner
Once you are committed to outsource, the most important step is to choose the right partner. The service provider must be the one who shares your vision and need for success.
The partner must have an excellent understanding of the industry, key metrics for that industry and know the kind of decisions that the end users are likely to make based on the BI application. The service provider must have an appreciation of the practical difficulties involved in putting together a usable and successful BI application. The depth of understanding should go beyond just the tool usage. A high level of understanding and knowledge of information standards and possessing an approach to master data management is crucial for the partner selection. In today's scenario, it is important to choose a partner with knowledge and good practices in other converging technologies such as enterprise application integration (EAI), service-oriented architecture (SOA), etc.
Designing and delivering a nimble architecture is critical to BI success, so choose a partner who appreciates the fact that business environments change. Do not go with a "tool pusher" who fits a "tool" to the scenario rather than appreciating the scenario and exploiting the tool to the fullest and works around the limitations. Knowledge and experience of implementing end to end data warehousing and BI projects is a necessity. Choosing a partner who can only do a piece of the tool work normally ends up as a recipe for failure as they do not appreciate the big picture or own the shared vision.
Take a Portfolio Management Approach
Long-term success from outsourcing stems from a well-thought-out roadmap. BI implementations are multiyear projects, and the successful ones are not the big bang projects, but those that are brought out in phases and implemented by subject area. Not all phases of the BI application are offshorable. BI applications which are just in the process of getting rolled out to business users may not be outsourced immediately because of change management sensitivities and data quality issues, which cannot be resolved by a partner who is brought in just at that stage.
A portfolio management approach to outsourcing must include the following questions:
- What is the spread of BI applications, their technical complexity and business criticality?
- If BI applications are in support phase, what is the mix of support activity across extract, transform and load (ETL), data quality, database operations and reports by application?
- What is the guidance criteria used to offshore BI activities?
Map your current portfolio into an easily recognizable visual by prominence of activities shown in Figure 1. This will give a flavor of what is ahead and who to choose.
Figure 1
Big Bang Will not Work
Identifying clear milestones is critical for BI success, which is why one should never plan a big bang. Have multiple mini projects clearly defined. Have stretch goals for yourselves as well as for your partners.
Figure 2
Execute projects under two broad phases - planning and execution. The planning phase is the time to understand the business requirements, get business and end-user buy-in and make the right business case for the budget. This is typically done with the right partner organization. It is ideal to involve the partner in this phase, then they truly share the vision and can take up the execution.
Once business interest is captured and first signs of success with business users are seen, the partner and your internal team share the energy and drive to make the whole program a great win.
There must also be clear business ownership for the master data, for maintaining conformed dimensions and measuring definitions. These owners must be champions for the same and be visible across the organization.
An effective governance model is the first step toward mitigating systemic failure. The clearer you are about your goals, the better. Document and follow review mechanisms, communication protocols and escalation/exception handling mechanisms.
The most critical aspect of outsourcing is continuous assessment - assess continuous value addition from the project, outsourcing partner performance evaluation and goal achievement status. Always foster continuous learning and innovation in the ecosystem.
Be the first to comment on this post using the section below.