Just how useful are business-intelligence tools for your average manager or knowledge worker? Business-intelligence software vendors would have you believe their products are so effective and easy-to-use that a 3-year-old could use them to create a five-year sales-projection report. But critics say the tools are so difficult to use and underlying data so complex that only people with a Ph.D. in statistics can use them.

The truth, not surprisingly, is somewhere in between. When it comes to business-intelligence software, users still need lots of hand-holding by the IT department, putting a strain on already-thin resources, according to a January survey of 100 business-technology professionals conducted by InformationWeek Research and Optimize Magazine Research.

When asked whether users can build their own queries and reports to access business data, 48% of respondents say no, users must rely on the IT department for help. Another 28% report that users could develop their own queries if they understood the underlying data structures--a rather tall order. Only 24% say users could accomplish the task with little or no technical knowledge.

All this can add to the IT workload. When business-intelligence tools are implemented within a company, the burden on IT staff increases, more than half of survey respondents say. Forty-six percent report that the move reduces the IT workload.

The key to successfully putting business-intelligence tools into the hands of users is cooperation among IT and business managers. When asked who drives the design and implementation of business-intelligence tools within their companies, 47% say projects are managed by a collaborative committee of IT and business managers. Thirty-five percent say business managers are the driving force, while only 18% say IT is behind the business-intelligence wheel.

Training is critical: 60% of respondents rate the usability of their companies' business-intelligence tools as not too difficult with training. Only 29% rate the tools' usability as challenging or nearly impossible. While at the other extreme, just 11% rate them intuitively easy.

How are business-intelligence tools being received at your company? Let us know at the address below.

Rick Whiting
Senior Editor
rwhiting@cmp.com

Many Sources Managers are increasingly turning to business-intelligence tools to navigate their way through a tough economy. But what kinds of data are they analyzing and where are they getting it? Sales and marketing operations are key data sources for business-intelligence applications, according to the study by InformationWeek Research and Optimize Magazine Research. Seventy-six percent of respondents say sales is a source of data used for business-intelligence purposes, while nearly three in five cite marketing as a source. But managers are also relying on business intelligence to understand information about their company's operations; a little more than half of respondents cite finance as a data source, followed by 55% who analyze operations and logistics data. Only 10% use sales or inventory data from their supply chain, despite an increasing emphasis on making supply chains more efficient. Top of the Page

Business Precedes IT Most often it's business sense, not IT expertise, that shapes the design and implementation of business-intelligence tools. Four in five companies interviewed by InformationWeek Research and Optimize Magazine Research have either business-intelligence strategies headed by business managers or have business executives on joint business-intelligence committees of IT and business managers. IT's influence isn't as far-reaching. Only two-thirds of companies say IT executives are members of a joint business-intelligence committee of IT and business execs or that their IT departments are sole managers of their business-intelligence campaigns.

Restrictions Prevail Information sharing opens up companies to a variety of risks, including the potential theft of data and the possible corruption of data stores. Yet these hazards aren't deterring companies from supporting business-intelligence initiatives, and some are going so far as to offer data access to remote workers. While two in five business-technology professionals say ad hoc access to business data by remote users isn't permitted, a slim majority of companies interviewed--51%--are allowing limited remote access to information. Just 11% of sites have opened their data doors fully, with virtually all information available to remote users.

Integration Issues Evident Companies are partially responsible for some of the issues limiting access to data. Almost 60% of respondents blame data-retrieval problems on the way their companies store their files. Thirty-six percent of respondents say that although business data is kept in a centralized repository, different formats and languages make it almost impossible to compile data runs without assistance. Twenty-two percent of those responding experience integration issues because their companies' data stores consist of multiple, nonintegrated databases. The remaining 42% have successfully overcome these issues, reporting instead that regardless of where data is stored, virtually all of it is easily accessible without assistance.