Centralizing BI Competence

Through our analysis of data from our survey of BI end users, Gartner determined that one characteristic is more likely than any other to indicate whether an organization is capable of operating at the higher levels of BI/performance management maturity: Its implementation of a BICC, or its lack thereof. A business intelligence competency center is a group of business, IT, and information analysts who work together to define business intelligence strategies and requirements for the entire organization.

Exhibit 2, illustrates the activities of the BICC and the skill sets that its team members need to bring to the table. When the right people come together, whether their reporting structure ties them directly to the BICC or their lines of responsibility are virtual, they can develop a BI vision for the organization, establish standards that BI and performance management technology implementations must abide by, oversee and control funding for those projects, offer training to BI and performance management technology end users, and provide leadership in terms of the processes underlying data collection and data management activities companywide. The benefits of such a competency center aren't hard to imagine, but they're more tangible in light of our recent survey. Approximately 33 percent of all respondents to the survey reported that their organization has a BICC; 66 percent indicated that their company does not. Of the organizations that we rated at levels one, two, or three on the Gartner BI maturity curve, 28 percent have created a BI competency center. In stark contrast, every organization that we placed at level four on the maturity curve has a BICC in place.

Creating a BI competency center is a major move for an organization, and one that should not be undertaken lightly. However, companies that want to achieve a strategic level of business intelligence and performance management should consider the benefits of a competency center. For those that decide to initiate one, Gartner has defined 11 best practices that will help companies get the most out of their investment:

Plan for the BICC to be dynamic. This is the most important best practice. Supporting business intelligence and performance management requires attention to the organization's business, people, processes, services, and technologies (as well as applications and infrastructure). These initiatives must be driven by business objectives and goals, which change over time. The BICC needs to be able to evolve with the business and with the needs of people in the organization. Likewise, the company's services and technology landscape will continue to change. New technologies will emerge, while others wane; vendors will enter the market and leave because of consolidation, changes in strategy, or financial issues; and different vendors will regularly offer new mixes of services and products. This does not mean that the BICC should alter with every internal or external change. However, members of the BICC need to monitor these changes -- which may affect their work -- and adjust the representing members, the number of members, and their roles and responsibilities accordingly.

Define and update your sponsor. Support for business intelligence and performance management is heavily driven by business objectives -- often by corporate-level objectives and metrics. It is vital to have a C-level sponsor for the BICC who will be actively involved in providing guidance, direction, requirements, and management. The sponsor must understand, and be committed to, his or her responsibilities. This senior executive should not only guide the BICC, but also promote the competency center's efforts and work with other senior executives to adopt and further develop the BICC's business intelligence and performance management efforts.

This is a key area in which the difference between organizations that have a BI competency center and those that don't was readily apparent in our survey. Organizations without a BICC were three times more likely to have no identified sponsor for business intelligence initiatives, and instead to have the company's data management team fulfilling organizational reporting requirements. Among organizations with a BICC, half indicated that their sponsor is a business executive -- such as a CFO or a VP of sales or marketing -- working on defined projects designed to meet specific objectives of their own department. In the most mature organizations, the BICC has a C-level sponsor who is linked directly to overall business objectives.