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Top 3 BI Adoption Hurdles and Tips for Jumping Over Them

by Brandon George
Microsoft MVP, President - America’s Region, Hillstar Business Intelligence, Sunrise Technologies, Inc.

While attending the Boston Executive Summit for The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI) in July 2014, I learned a shocking statistic. Among the most mature organizations, only 30% had rated themselves as having a high adoption rate for BI usage. So for the rest of us, including about 70% of mature organizations, it's probably a fair bet that we're making decisions based on inaccurate data or gut-feel.

Why do BI Adoption rates among companies remain low?

We are still making decisions without adequate data, making reactive, gut-feel decisions because of these top 3 reasons:

  1. Rigid Systems
    When systems are too rigid or a single data warehouse schema is too hard to change, a lot of companies find they can't get to a winning BI strategy. People end up creating and managing their own reporting inside departments because of this inflexibility and the risk of inaccurate data pulled from various places increases. Let's call this Trust Issue #1.
  2. Missing Data
    More often than not, ERP, CRM, or whatever systems you have are never the only systems that matter. There's always going to be something else that you want to take data from across different schemas. Having adequate data and everyone operating off of the same data is a huge advantage but many companies still have significant data gaps that prevent tasks from being completed. We can call this Trust Issue #2.
  3. Gaps in Workflow
    According to a recent Forbes article, "Business Intelligence (BI) Isn't. Very Intelligent. Yet.," almost half of all companies fill reporting needs through manual extraction, feeding the information to spreadsheets or PDFs. And ...

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About Brandon George

Brandon George is a Microsoft Dynamics AX MVP, and President, America's Region, for Hillstar Business Intelligence. You may recognize him from his retired blog Dynamics-AX.blogspot.com or his new BI focused blog DataPrimes.com. Brandon brings hands-on implementation and customization experience in Software Development, Database Design, and SQL Server and leads a team that is charged with helping clients put their data to work.

He has extensive experience in information systems including X++ programming, systems analysis, systems design, configuration, and project deployment. His diverse background in information and business systems gives him a great capacity to interact with people from various business areas and levels. He has outstanding analytical, problem solving, and communication skills as well as proven ability to help people understand complex issues. 

Brandon has worked on numerous large scale implementation projects for Microsoft Dynamics AX and MicroStrategy BI.

His commonly used skills include, but are not limited to:

  • Microsoft Business Solutions and .NET Framework knowledge
  • Microsoft Dynamics AX and MicroStrategy BI hands-on implementation experience
  • Systems architecture and design
  • Applications development
  • Database design
  • Project Management
  • User Training

You can always feel free to email directly at: brandon@hillstar-bi.com.

More about Brandon George