A successful project starts with establishing a complete understanding of the current maturity level of the business roles within your organization, a task that the Ladder of Business Intelligence is designed to do in detail. The LOBI framework, which was developed in conjunction with Saama Advisory Board member Jim Cates, uses several tools to analyze the business information resources and needs of your organization, measure the gap between those needs and the current state of your information systems, and create a roadmap leading to the data models that are required to fulfill those needs.
LOBI pinpoints the areas in your organization that have the largest gaps as well as those that have already closed it, and gone beyond basic information requirements and moved up the ladder to better management through a clear, information-based understanding of the business. The result is a comprehensive set of business objectives to be fulfilled during our engagement that are based on the measured state of your business intelligence information.
The LOBI framework describes six levels of information maturity that, with suitable analysis, can be applied to any business role in your organization:
Ladder of Business Intelligence Levels of Information Maturity
LEVEL
EXAMPLE
Facts
Multiple customer and supply chain databases with no organization
Data
ERP system providing an integrated database
Information
Information view through OLAP
Knowledge
Knowledge base, including query systems and FAQs
Understanding
Shared knowledge proactive decisions that transcend business roles
Enabled Intuition
Insightful business decisions that yield breakthrough visionary results
This analytical framework of LOBI provides a foundation for success because it describes where the skillful use of technology and human intelligence can best be applied to achieve the BI results your company most critically needs. Every step on the LOBI ladder represents a more mature, more intelligent organization that can operate smarter and faster than an organization that is on a lower rung. Moving up the ladder is the pathway to progress, and reaching the top rung is the hallmark of business intelligence maturity and success.
Level 1 - Facts
The recorded measure of an event is a fact, and your organization's business data is made up of millions of these tiny entities. These measures are collected into data bases by numerous revenue and cost systems scattered throughout your organization and, while these facts are organized for their initial purpose, they are of little use when it comes to understanding how well your business is working because the scope or their organization is too small. And searching through this vast sea of facts is problematic not just because there are too many of them, but also because they are scattered over a wide area of your company.
Level 2 - Data
Level 1 Facts become Level 2 Data when they are organized into an integrated data base by an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Once housed there, the data can be slotted into useful categories, such as operating costs, revenue, or real property assets. That makes it easier to search for the various types of data you care about, but you are not able to create the reports or do the analysis you need to do your work because ERP software does not have the tools, nor does it allow you to analyze your business using all of the relevant information at one time.
Level 3 - Information
Online analytical processing (OLAP) enables you to do multidimensional analysis, in which you bring all the factors affecting your organizations business into play. Your analytical data cube can be used just for reporting, or to do sophisticated analysis and forecasting. However you use it, the information produced is robust enough for your use in making the important business decisions that will lead your company to success.
Level 4 - Knowledge
As you analyze your information and use it, you will develop knowledge about how it can be used, as well as how it cannot be used. One result is the development of a portfolio of best practices for how to carry out analysis and planning in your organization. More important, you'll also be able to develop the best practices for using the trends and behavior of your company's business when making decisions. The result is a complete array of practices that will be profitably used in planning for your company's success.
Level 5 - Understanding
Sharing knowledge among the various organizations of your business, and among the various levels of those organizations, is how you can create an understanding of the business. Creating this collaborative understanding of your business will lead to several important results including agreement on a common set of goals, strategies to reach those goals, and rules about how to best proceed in the work of driving your business towards them.
Level 6 - Enabled Intuition
Taking understanding to the next level results in enabled intuition, a state of mind in your company's management that enables decision makers to choose the right course of action intuitively. This almost natural decision-making process will inevitably lead to the right course of action, raising the craft of management to an art form.
Learn how Saama helped leading, international Biotech firm build single platform to efficiently and effectively plan, manage and track marketing programs and related spending.
