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Smart Choices

Business intelligence is not just for the big guys any more. As applications grow cheaper and easier to run, more small- and mid-market CIOs are using BI to drive innovation and create competitive advantage

Innovation Time

Success generates enthusiasm and, therefore, support for BI throughout the company. Once that happens, it's time to start thinking out of the box.

At Delta Sonic, Boebel is looking to incorporate outside sources of data into the BI application to help the company manage staffing more efficiently. He hopes to include National Weather Service forecasts as one of the factors store managers use to plan staffing levels. For example, by knowing when and how much snow is forecast, as well as how long temperatures will remain below freezing (which means salt stays on the roads longer and cars remain dirty longer), Boebel can correlate that data with past statistics on car wash sales and snowfall to determine the number of cars that will likely come through Delta Sonic's car washes, avoiding the prospect of having too many workers or not enough.

Boebel has many other ideas for using BI. The only thing holding him back, he says, is convincing managers to use the application more. "But that will come in time as we show what can be done," Boebel says. "This is just the start."

SIDEBAR: Smart Tools and How to Find Them

What to think about when looking at BI platforms and applications

BEFORE INVITING the first BI vendor in to give a pitch, CIOs at a small- to mid-market company should ask themselves one question: How will my organization use the data a BI application will provide?

Organizations answer that question in one of two ways, says Leslie Ament, practice leader and director of customer intelligence research at Aberdeen Group. And the way you answer that question will direct you toward the type of BI investment you may want to make.

Some organizations plan to use business intelligence to support strategic decisions, such as for sales, marketing, customer service, procurement or production. Little more than half of all organizations that use BI do so to support strategic decisions, according to Aberdeen. The two most widely supported business activities for which organizations use BI are sales and business development, and customer support.

Whether you use BI for strategic decision support or to streamline operations, either approach is valid. Recent vendor product offerings mean it doesn't have to be expensive, with some applications costing in the mid-five figures. "Small- and mid-market players believe that BI has a high cost point for entry and that you need a lot of horsepower," Ament says. "That's not necessarily true.

BI applications are becoming less expensive because vendors are introducing scaled-back versions that don't require so much computing power. Cognos, for example, last year introduced its Cognos 8 BI application, which provides organizations a chance to choose different levels of offerings.

— A HOLMES

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