With the evolution of BI tools, the effectiveness of Business intelligence continues to improve by the day and the software vendors are developing more complete solutions. However, these systems are far too expensive and complicated to use at the middle management level. Access is often limited to senior executives and the system is maintained by an army of technical and analytical staffs.
When one considers the decision and process structure for most organization , it is easy to see how even the most complete BI solution can fall short in providing the value expected by the enterprise. Whether an organization is large or small, it is comprised of staff members with diverse responsibilities. Line staffs, supervisors and middle level managers are required to contribute information to support business decisions, yet these managers rarely have access to information outside their own department.
Most middle managers are experts in their own discipline, but rarely understand other aspects of the business causing to missing information and assumptions in decision. An ideal Business Intelligence (BI) solution should provide a cost effective integrated environment in which a knowledge base reporting methodology and critical metrics can empower users to take day to day and long term middle management decisions.
At the center lies the business decision. Rather than keeping the business components integrated, the critical knowledge remains the sole property of each functional domain.
