Now that I got your attention, I can talk a little bit about the "New Frontiers" in my blog title!
I have seen many discussions about the How of Business Intelligence but in the corporate context, the What, When, Who, Why are all just as important in the Business or any Orgnanizational (Profit or Non-Profit) context and those are all the topics I would be exploring in the New Frontiers!
Traditional Business Intelligence has concentrated on Sales Intelligence and Financial Intelligence but there is a much more important kind of Intelligence; Process Intelligence!
I would claim that to some extent, Sales Intelligence and Financial Intelligence are Post-mortem kinds of analyses although they can help guide your future strategies and tactics by gathering insights from past performance. They are much more like looking at the Rear-View mirror to see what your sales goals were and what you achieved. Or what your past Sales is telling you about where things are headed!
In Sales Intelligence, you may want to see what products sold in what regions, who sold what in what regions etc.
Similarly in Financial Intelligence you may be analyzing your Incomes, Expenditures and Cash Flow. You may want to drill down and see the components of your income and components of your expenses. What did we earn where? What did we spend where?
Thinking about Corporate Performance, these are the end results of your past performance! Like looking out the rear-view mirror!
Process Intelligence is about how, today, your existing business processes are being executed. To a large extent, these determine your Sales performance and your Financial Performance, in the end. We are neglecting the Root Cause of what our performance is going to be , next month, next quarter, next year, next decade!
Process Intelligence is not just a static kind of analysis to know the cycle time for an Order to Cash cycle or a Customer Support Issue resolution is. It can extend to every process within the company whether they are really long term, 25 year strategic research, advanced development or product development processes or whether they are your Sales Process - Prospect Qualification, Presentation, Proposal and Close!
All of these processes determine the Sales and Financial Performance of the company. The end goal of process intelligence is to CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVE these processes in whatever metrics that may make sense for the company!
Paying attention to processes is an extremely powerful and profitable enterprise whether you are non-profit, Government or For Profit enterprises! The goal is to constantly improve these processes to eliminate Waste at all levels - waste of human effort, waste of movement of paper, waste of time in waiting in between processing!
Simple example - In most countries, issuing a passport to a citizen is a multi-week effort! However countries that have started asking the question - why should passport issuance take 6 weeks? why not 3 weeks? why not 1 week? why not 3 days?
Funnily, when questions like these are asked, all kinds of improvement possibilities pop up - online submission of applications, automated checks with Police, etc.
Most business processes are all "hurry up and wait" kinds of things! Someone does a little but of work and then it gets into the Inbox of someone and just sits there, waiting!
I would be talking about the What, When, Who and WHy of Process Intelligence. It has the power to double or even triple the profitability of a company or the effectiveness of a not-for-profit organization. Those will be the New Frontiers! Hope what I say stokes your thought processes within your own organizations and you can identify possibilities you may not have thought of before!
Those will be the New Frontiers!
Your Current Safe Boundaries Were Once Unknown Frontiers! - Anonymous
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