`Best Practices when offshoring Business Intelligence

Best Practices when Offshoring Business Intelligence 2006

Ted Kempf in his article in VarBusiness credits Gartner Dataquest with the following definition for Business Intelligence a user-centered process for of exploring data , data relationships and trends , thereby helping improve overall decision making (Kempf , 2001

US companies today are setting up business-intelligence technology for the purpose of processing the incessant flow of information they receive . These companies gather this information so they can maintain and build customer relationships and make sound business decisions in a timely manner

A Gartner Dataquest study revealed

that the primary reason for companies investing in business-intelligence applications is to ensure they have available the information to assist them in making real-time business decisions

Even though the current trend is to outsource IT initiatives overseas to save costs , the rationale in doing the same for business intelligence is questionable . This is because business intelligence (like data ware housing ) is not a technical exercise and requires business knowledge . It is iterative and business-focused in nature (Consilvio , 2003

She insists that offshoring BI presents the biggest risk for ETL (extract , transform and load ) because it is grossly underestimated

For this reason , Robert Mitchell , in his article in Computerword , even goes as far as saying that the threat for offshoring is overstated (Mitchell , 2006

In her article for Computerworld , Maria Consilvio lists some of the best practices for offshoring business intelligence . They include

Set up tight specifications

Start with an approach similar to staff-augmentation

Define service levels which are appropriate for your expectations

Keep an onshore presence as representation for the business knowledge This enables the life cycle to be quick turn

Ensure that the development team is reactive to feedback so that business feedback can be translated to technical specifications

Offshore the long term projects with more stable requirements

Ensure requirements are defined to such a level that the technical resource does not necessarily have to have the business knowledge

Determine beforehand the restrictions placed on exiting the contractas such contracts may not have defined end or start dates as a result of the fluid nature of BI

Audit offshore tools and , as much as possible , insist on scalable tools

Equip the onshore team with systems integration , project management and deliver management skills

In support of the best practice procedures above , William McKnight of McKnight Associates suggests the following as excerpted from his 2003 article in Computerworld

ON-SITE Set up benchmarking and service-level criteria Establish business rules Maintain (create /translate ) business knowledge Involve users in data warehouse decisions Ensure application support after development OFF-SITE Set up an enforcement mechanism for business rules Establish expertise in tools , such as data cleansing , automated extractors , dashboards and real-time delivery Application development Application support and project maintenance

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REFERENCES

Consilvio , Jean (2003 . BI : Last to Leave . Computerworld , December 12

Kempf , Ted (2001 . Business-Intelligence Apps : Companies want them , but are emerging integrators prepared to deliver ? VarBusiness , November 6 McGee , Marianne Kolbasuk (2006 . You Vs . Offshoring -- U .S . tech pros...