These monsters are draining value from your BI investment

There is a phenomenon in large organisations that I call the "Zombie dashboard."

It usually happens like this: Three years ago, an executive named Amanda requested a specific dashboard to track a specific campaign. It was urgent. It was built.

Then, Amanda left the company.

Today, that dashboard is still there. The data pipeline is still running. The server costs are still ticking over. But nobody has looked at it in 18 months. It is a zombie, consuming resources, but dead on the inside.

If you work in a large SME, corporate, or government agency, your system is probably full of zombies.

But Zombie dashboards are not the only thing draining resources from your critical investment in BI. 

There’s another monster: Frankenstein. 

This happens because of "feature creep."

When you have a mature BI environment, the queue for new reports is always out the door. People ask for things because they can. We build them because we have the budget.

Eventually, you end up with a Frankenstein’s Monster of a system—thousands of reports, confusing metrics, and zero clarity on what is actually moving the needle.

You know you are sitting on a data goldmine, but you can’t find the gold at the bottom because there is too much junk on top.

I know that in many corporate and government environments, "Return on Investment" (ROI) isn't always the primary language. 

You have a budget allocation for "digital transformation" or "insight," and the goal is to spend it to improve capability.

But even if you aren't chasing a hard financial ROI, you absolutely need a North Star for value.

Without a clear definition of "Value"—a North Star—you have no way to say "No" to feature creep. You have no way to kill the Zombie Dashboards.

At Montage, we spend a lot of time with clients who have already invested heavily in BI. They have the tools. They have the data. But they don't have the answers.

Our job isn't just to build more; it's to ask the hard questions about value.

• Who is this for?
• What decision will this change?
• If this dashboard broke tomorrow, would anyone scream?

It stops the project from becoming a monster. It ensures that later, when the CFO or the Board asks you to justify the spend (and they will eventually ask), you have a clear, defensible answer.

Through our Mahi Tahi partnership, we don't just look at the dashboards; we look at the whole ecosystem, governance, security, and strategy.

If you feel like your BI system has grown out of control, or if you suspect you’re funding a lot of work for "Amanda", who left two years ago, it’s time to refocus.

If you want help to find the gold at the bottom of the mine and stay clear of the monsters, we’d love to hear from you.