Like many large and complex organisations, ANZCO is very successful in their core business and operations. However they had not realised their capability in Business Intelligence to ensure fast and accurate decision-making based on good information.
Scenario
The challenges faced by ANZCO are typical: they had invested in new core business systems and applications, but their Business Intelligence was still driven by spread sheets. This brought a number of issues around scalability, transparency, data quality, and timeliness - and meant that they lacked a ‘single version of the truth’.
Previous Business Intelligence projects over the years had met with varying degrees of success, primarily due to a disconnect between what the key stakeholders in the business required, and what was actually being delivered.
Situation
Business Intelligence specialists Montage were brought into do a Business Intelligence Discovery to understand where the gaps and roadblocks existed within the organisation.
“Typically a Business Intelligence Discovery almost always reveals that the gap is people and process rather than technology. ANZCO had the technology they needed to be successful, but the critical success factor in this case was the lack of an internal Business Analyst to ensure the transformation of the data to information was successful” said Tony Millar, Montage CEO.
Montage believe that 50% of the effort from a Business Intelligence project has to come internally and was fortunate that ANZCO introduced Craig Mclintock into the Senior Business Analyst’s role during the discovery and phase one to be able to work closely with Montage to ensure a successful outcome.
A Business Analyst’s role is to understand the business systems, and the business requirements. They need to be the key connector between the business and IT. An internal Business Analyst with knowledge of the business meant that when it came to working with Montage the outcomes for both parties were positive, Montage had someone who was connected to the business, knew what the CEO wanted to see and also a person that could quickly and positively address any issues when it came to testing the delivered solution.
Results
The key to the result was a great team effort and partnership between Montage and ANZCO. Together with Craig, the key stakeholders and the development team from Montage the successful outcome of delivering good information to the right people had resulted from maturing the people and processes within ANZCO.
The visibility of inconsistent information, data quality and process issues was another key result of the phase one project. “We’ve got transparency where previously it was hidden. The Business Intelligence project has enforced data quality in the business allowing us to address the root causes of problems which have previously been hidden in spread sheets” said Craig.
“After years of frustration our key stakeholders now have a good view of some of their key performance indicators, there is also less time spent preparing the data for analysis.”Craig Mclintock
Senior Business Analyst