What’s the return on investment (ROI) for business intelligence (BI) projects? Usually, BI outcomes have no direct impact on the business. The decisions made based on BI often require investments of time and effort, and those decisions get the credit for any returns and profits. So how do you measure the success of a BI project?

Gartner says the value is more in the mind than in the books. In my view, BI solutions provide a better view into the business, one that’s often clear, consolidated, and concise. I’ve also noticed that organizations (even individual departments) with BI solutions tend to be better integrated than others. Internal efficiencies come before external impact. These efficiencies might be in productivity, automation, creative decision-making, collaboration, and so on.

The challenge now is to connect BI to outcomes. In other words, to make BI actionable. It’s like finding the causes and effects of BI efforts: understanding why you built a piece of intelligence and tracking its outcomes. Today’s BI tools don’t provide these features out of the box, but solutions built around the tools can.

Do you struggle to relate your BI solution to reality on the ground? Look at how actionable your BI outcomes are. If you need help discovering what’s actionable in your BI, contact us.