Intelligent Enterprise

THE MATURITY CLASS FRAMEWORK

Aberdeen used five key performance criteria in three categories to distinguish the Best-in-Class from Industry Average and Laggard organizations:

Time-to-Decision Performance:

-- Decrease (in days, hours, minutes, seconds) in time-to-information " measured as the time between business activity and delivery of information to decision-makers over the past 12 months

-- Decrease (in days, hours, minutes, seconds) in time-to-decision " measured as the time between business activity and decision/action taken over the past 12 months

Customer Satisfaction/Response Performance:

-- Customer satisfaction Composite Index Result (CIR): combined percentage improvement in customer satisfaction, issue resolution speed, and issue resolution accuracy in past 12 months

-- Percentage of improvement in customer retention during past 12 months

Operational Process Performance:

-- Percentage of improvement in system up-time/data access and availability for end-users over the past 12 months

BEST-IN-CLASS STRATEGIES

The predominant pressure driving companies to implement new (or change existing) strategies around operational business intelligence is the improvement of operational efficiencies. This encompasses the desire to alleviate both economic and intangible costs associated with labor and time-intensive actions that occur on a daily, hourly, or moment-to-moment basis. The use of BI and performance management technologies combined with underlying data integration and professional consulting and training services is enabling organizations to develop strategies and capabilities to alleviate this pressure (see "Best-in-Class PACE Framework" at right).

BIC PACE Framework Click Image to Enlarge

While the improvement of operational efficiencies is the top pressure driving organizations, companies are also prioritizing the timeliness and accuracy of business decisions, and the improvement of management's view of operations. These selections indicate that operational BI has a lot to do with internal processes, and less to do with external business pressures.

To address the top pressures, companies are implementing several key strategic initiatives. All companies agree that alignment of KPIs with strategic goals is a key first step. But Best-in-Class organizations depart from the rest of the field in putting a greater emphasis on establishing end-user visibility, and creating an on-going process for review and re-alignment of operational processes. The benefits of continually reviewing and realigning KPIs based on operational performance can be seen in the performance advantages realized by Best-in-Class companies, as described below.