In 1735 Ben Franklin published one of his more famous quotes in The Pennsylvania Gazette (his newspaper at the time). In an article written to convince the town leadership of the virtues of fire preparedness, he added the phrase “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. That advice has never been more relevant than it is today, especially for BI.
You see, the problem is an all-too-common business illustration. “Suddenly” there’s a problem. Except the only thing “sudden” about it is the realization that there is a problem. A problem that has been slowly building from a drip to a flash flood, all the while remaining unnoticed. Fast Forward. Now that the business is aware of the problem, it’s on a mission to find out why. And what better way to find the “why” than to analyze the business data for diagnostic answers. And voila, now the business develops a BI program and the business thrives happily ever after.
Except it doesn’t. The amount of effort and time to spin up a new BI program while being haunted by an unknown problem is daunting. The data isn’t usually where you think it is, if it’s available at all. And you likely don’t have all of it…and let’s not even bring up data accuracy right now. But the business proceeds, because, even though it’s not a complete picture, it is telling some story (albeit fractional and likely inaccurate). And here is the crux – the business now hinges on decisions crafted on insufficient data, incomplete modeling, and a string of late nights fueled with orange soda, coffee, and gummy bears.
I would like to propose something different and channel Ben Franklin for a moment. Start building your BI platform now. The effort and costs will be less, the data will be more thorough and complete, and the results will be better for your business. Most importantly, your BI program will be proactively giving you a heads-up on your potential problems BEFORE they become real problems. And that is truly the ounce of prevention producing its pound of cure, probably more.
If you’ve been struggling with how to start building a BI platform for your business, we can help. Our expertise and experience in assessing and finding the right processes that maximize organizational impact and help get the BI program rolling are particularly useful. And just so you know, we’ve faced about every hurdle you can imagine during this process, and have strategies, tips, and suggestions to help with all of them. You can rest assured we’ll help you find the best way forward.
