In order to improve the performance of an iron and steel enterprise, the senior manager put forward a proposition to his subordinates: how many enterprises can achieve the highest benefit by smelting 0.04 steel and 0.06 steel respectively? First of all, from the perspective of application, benefits are related to cost, market demand, product market share and product pricing. Costs include raw materials such as ore, upstream logistics and transportation, inventory and auxiliary materials, which are all in the procurement system of enterprises. Performance is related to human cost, in the human resources system; Related to the production capacity of the enterprise, in the ERP system of the enterprise; It is related to the enterprise's customer demand next year (which can be predicted from last year's customer orders-in the customer relationship management system), product pricing, competitor's profitability, market demand and so on. , which exists in the data and forecast results of third parties; To solve this problem, it is natural to ask: first, can we integrate data sources, that is, establish a data warehouse to support production and operation, marketing and financial analysis; The second is what kind of model to use and how to analyze it, that is, what tools and analysis methods to use; Third, who will analyze IT? Many people think it should be the business of IT department, some think it is the business of strategic planning department, and some think it is the business of marketing department. Whose business is this? It seems that we have to discuss the Business Intelligence Competence Center (BICC) here.
First, the necessity of building a business intelligence capability center
Many enterprises have not paid attention to using data to speak, make decisions or "pat their heads". The main reason is not that leaders don't like to speak with data, but that they have realized the importance of data. However, the ERP system and core business system of enterprises have not been built online, that is, always online has not accumulated a lot of data, so the urgency of business intelligence demand is not strong. If a large amount of data has been accumulated, enterprises will realize the importance of data warehouse and business intelligence projects. Because the construction of data warehouse takes a long time, the application of data warehouse has not been fully put on the agenda. Regardless of the stage of enterprise informatization construction, the direction and goal of enterprise informatization construction should be considered: enterprise informatization construction will be divided into three levels: the first level is to realize the automation of basic business through core business systems; The second level is the process of realizing the upstream, middle and downstream management of enterprises through management information systems (ERP, CRM, SCM, etc.). ); The ultimate goal is to help enterprises realize scientific strategic decision-making, tactical formulation, campaign planning, execution, monitoring, analysis and adjustment through decision support system, and lay a solid foundation for enterprise profitability and risk prevention.
In order to realize scientific decision-making, enterprises must obtain information from data, make feasible scientific plans, analyze and monitor their business, and have a team that can support business intelligence capability analysis. This is the Business Intelligence Capability Center (BICC).
II. Tasks and responsibilities of the Business Intelligence Capability Center:
The task of business intelligence competence center is to analyze and study the structured and unstructured data of enterprises and non-enterprises, monitor the production and operation, financial situation, marketing ability and talent utilization of enterprises, explore the existing problems and their roots, simulate the best profit model of enterprise development, assist enterprises to formulate and adjust the strategic objectives, tactical objectives and operational objectives of enterprise development, and check the operation and implementation status of enterprises. Find problems in time and put forward suggestions and schemes for different departments and levels of the enterprise.
Thirdly, the position of business intelligence competence center in enterprises.
What is the position of business intelligence competence center in enterprises? Which department should it belong to? This depends on the current situation and positioning of the enterprise. If an enterprise has a special strategic planning department, it is best for the business intelligence capability center to belong to this department and report directly to the chief strategy officer (CSO) of the enterprise. If the enterprise has no strategic planning department, and the financial department has changed from the most basic financial accounting to management accounting, that is to say, the responsibility of the financial department has risen to the position of strategic investment, operational analysis and tactical planning guidance of the enterprise, then the business intelligence capability center should be subordinate to the financial department and report directly to the CFO of the enterprise. If an enterprise does not have a strategic planning department, the financial department is not very "strong", and the business intelligence capability center generally reports to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or the director of the information center.
At the present stage in China, most enterprises have no strategic planning department. A business intelligence capability center is generally composed of some personnel of the information center or IT department and some personnel of the statistical analysis department.
Fourth, the composition of the personnel of the business intelligence capability center
The personnel of the business intelligence competence center should be composed of people who know both business and IT technology as well as analysis tools and methods, and should include senior managers who know business processes, business norms and enterprise strategies. Including IT technicians who understand the structure of enterprise core business system, data warehouse or data mart structure and metadata structure; It also includes mathematical talents or statistical experts who know OLAP analysis, principal component analysis, multiple regression, neural network, genetic algorithm, cluster analysis and other analysis tools and methods; Including MBA business personnel who know business management, financial knowledge and marketing knowledge.
Figure 1 Basic Competence of Personnel in Business Intelligence Competence Center
These people must have strong communication and cooperation skills. The communication objects include the senior management who set the strategic objectives of the enterprise and use modern management ideas and concepts such as balanced scorecard, strategic map, business profit model and innovation. It also includes managers of business departments and financial departments who formulate enterprise budgets and plans, as well as front-line managers who implement enterprise operational objectives. Of course, it would be better to have compound talents, but such compound talents are hard to get and can be cultivated through cooperative learning.
The basic competence of the personnel of the business intelligence competence center should include three skills: business skills, information technology skills and analytical skills:
1, business skills: combined with the company's strategy, formulate key performance indicators and processes for the tactical and operational objectives of the enterprise, clarify the priority of implementation, and complete the optimization process to achieve strategic objectives;
2. Analysis skills: Knowing the business process, you will find problems from the enterprise's operating reports and key performance indicators, set the threshold of key performance indicators, and find anomalies through early warning. Then you can find or use mathematical methods and modeling tools to simulate the causes of problems, summarize and analyze the laws of problems, explain the results, and put forward effective suggestions and improvement plans.
3. Information technology skills: master the identification, storage, maintenance and integration of data, obtain useful data and information according to the needs of the target, obtain complete, timely, effective and high-quality data, and design the semantic layer.
The manager of the business intelligence competence center should be a person with business skills, IT skills and management skills, and the final result can coordinate the business objectives across business departments. You must also be able to coordinate different views between business functions and have the political wisdom to reach an agreement between different departments and personnel.
Although there is no business intelligence capability center in the enterprise, we must consider whether the information center can be turned into the business intelligence capability center of the enterprise, from the original cost center to the profit center of the enterprise, and from the original "cousin" to the key auxiliary decision maker of the enterprise. The faster and more efficient an enterprise obtains and uses information, the faster it can reduce costs and improve profits. If modern enterprises want to become global enterprises, they must establish an enterprise business intelligence capability center with long-term vision, broad vision, cross-functional strategic planning, data analysis, abnormal monitoring, process optimization, risk prevention and implementation adjustment in different time, different regions, different company regulations and different cultural territories.