Consolidating analytic applications into a centralized corporate metrics initiative can make anyone feel “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. Most organizations start the journey with an evaluation of the applications being utilized in the corporation and concentrate on a laundry list of features and requirements. The process generally consists of scoring each application’s strengths and weaknesses and when the process is complete, a winner is selected and the implementation begins.
Unfortunately, catering to the metrics needs of a diverse set of individuals and divisional requirements can be a challenge for any single reporting mechanism. Many metrics initiatives actually fail because the personnel they are intended to help can’t figure out how to get the data they need to make their business decisions from. Interestingly, the needs are usually a specific set of performance results not easily aligned with the corporation’s laundry list of application features.
The other night I was watching an old Peter Sellers movie and couldn’t help drawing an analogy. Clouseau was in the lobby of a hotel when a lady with a dog approached. He kneels down to pet the dog and politely asks, “Does your dog bite?”. The lady softly replies, “No, my dog doesn’t bite”. Suddenly, the dog digs into Clouseau’s hand and he quickly backs off. He exclaims, “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite”, to which the lady explains, “This is not my dog”.
As I watched the scene it reminded me of how important it is to ask the right question and how easy it is to misinterpret the answer. Over the years, we have been involved with many corporate analytic implementations and there are two major headlines that have emerged for me. One: everyone wants something different, and two: the process has to be clear and simple for everyone.
Clearly, consolidating corporate metrics into a single application can remove ambiguities, streamline processes and reduce overall costs. Ironically, as the number of users increase, so does the inherent complexities of fulfilling the unique needs of each user in a single “one size fits all” application.
To institutionalize analytics and business intelligence applications more effort needs to be focused on the process of how individuals receive the information they need, instead of the actual features and usage of the metrics application. Today, most major metrics applications can answer the majority of questions we need to know, even some that are free. The challenge is to provide each individual with their unique answers in a consumable way for all.
