Copyright 2009, Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester's BI Maturity Assessment Tool

September 2009 by Boris Evelson with Connie Moore, Rob Karel, James Kobielus and Charles Coit

OVERVIEW
Forrester recommends using this BI maturity assessment tool at the beginning of any new strategic BI initiative to better understand your current state and strategic priorities. Forrester's definition of business intelligence is very broad: Business intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insight and decisionmaking. Therefore, when answering these questions please consider all relevant processes and technologies such as data integration, master data management, data warehousing, performance management, etc., in addition to reporting, dashboards, and analytics.

INSTRUCTIONS
To begin, please enter your company name in cell B13, below.

[Company name]
When you have entered your company name, you can proceed to the "Maturity Assessment" tab and begin reviewing Forrester's questionnaire. Please note that you have the opportunity to fill in two scores for each row item: your current state score and your target score.

After filling in your scores, you can adjust Forrester's suggested weightings in column E to tailor the tool to your firm's specific needs. Once you have finished with the questionnaire, the "Assessment Results" tab will show your results. The left-hand spider chart will show how your BI maturity compares with an anecdotal average of Forrester clients. The right-hand chart will show your current state score compared against your target score.

2009, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.

Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester's BI Maturity Assessment Tool

September 2009 by Boris Evelson with Connie Moore, Rob Karel, James Kobielus and Charles Coit

Criteria Governance and ownership Top-down mandate

Capability

Scale

Weighting 100%

Current state score 0.00

Target score 0.00

Our senior enterprise managers recognize the importance of BI and view it 5 - Strongly agree not just as a reporting application, but as a major competitive differentiator for 3 the enterprise. Theres a strong top-down mandate to build and continuously 1 - Strongly disagree improve BI infrastructure and applications. Our SVPs and VPs who hold BI budgets and control priorities also recognize 5 - Strongly agree the importance of BI and view it not just as a reporting application, but as a 3 major competitive differentiator for the enterprise. Theres a strong 1 - Strongly disagree commitment from them to build and continuously improve BI infrastructure and applications. Our business stakeholders view BI as their own, not just as an IT initiative. They have a sense of clear ownership and personal responsibility for the success of BI initiatives. They do not view BI as just another IT project. IT supports and manages BI infrastructure and applications, but it does not "own" BI. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

20%

Budget holders commitment

20%

Business ownership

20%

Funding

Once a BI initiative is determined as critical and strategic, we can usually 5 - Strongly agree obtain funding. Since there is a strong top-down mandate and commitment by 3 senior management to BI, elevating BI initiatives to strategic level is not an 1 - Strongly disagree issue. Our BI spend is average, above, or below average as compared with other organizations, where "average" is: BI as a percentage of the overall IT budget is in the 0.9%-1% range, or BI as a percentage of the software budget is in the 6%-7% range, or BI as a percentage of revenues is around 0.03%. 5 - Significantly above average 4 - Above average 3 - Average 2 - Below average 1 - Significantly below average

20%

BI spend

20%

Organization Centralization Our BI organization is centralized or tightly integrated across business units, geographies, and departments. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

100% 15%

0.00

0.00

Business intelligence solutions Our BI initiatives are supported not just by a help desk and a tech support center (aka "competency center," center, but with a fully functional business intelligence solutions center a or "center of excellence") permanent, cross-functional organizational structure responsible for governance and processes necessary to deliver or facilitate delivery of successful BI solutions, as well as being an institutional steward, protector, and forum for BI best practices. Training When new BI functionality is rolled out, it is typically linked with appropriate training.

15%

5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Significantly above average 4 - Above average 3 - Average 2 - Below average 1 - Significantly below average

15%

Skills

We have strong commitment and well-defined procedures to hire, train, and retain skilled BI staff.

20%

Pervasiveness

Enterprise BI applications are available to most strategic and operational decision-makers.

15%

Enterprise BI applications usage by strategic decision makers is above, the same, or below average than in most organizations, where the average is 50%.

10%

Enterprise BI application usage by tactical and operational decision-makers is 5 - Significantly above average above, the same, or below average than in most organizations, where the 4 - Above average average is 25%. 3 - Average 2 - Below average 1 - Significantly below average

10%

Copyright 2009, Forrester Research, Inc.

Processes Governance We have a well-established and smoothly running business-led information 5 - Strongly agree governance organization and process, both centrally and well integrated with 3 regional or line-of-business (LOB) governance organizations. 1 - Strongly disagree Our BI initiatives and projects are driven and designed top-down. We start by 5 - Strongly agree defining corporate, LOB, and departmental strategy, linked to goals and 3 objectives, and ultimately link these to specific KPIs/KPMs. 1 - Strongly disagree Our BI planning processes (portfolio management, project prioritization, scope management, etc.) are well-established and running smoothly. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

100% 20%

0.00

0.00

Performance management

20%

Planning

10%

Execution

Our BI project management office processes that manage and oversee all 5 - Strongly agree steps of a BI initiative (analysis, design, building, testing, and implementation) 3 are well-established and running smoothly. 1 - Strongly disagree Our BI collaboration processes (collaboration on building and collaboration while using BI) are well-established and running smoothly across business units; front, middle, and back offices; and geographies. Our processes for managing change to organizational structures and business processes based on new BI functionality are well-established and running smoothly. Our processes for announcing new BI functionality are well-established and running smoothly. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

10%

Collaboration

10%

Change management

10%

Communication

10%

Best practices

Our processes for collecting, organizing, managing, and communicating BI best practices (internal and external) are well-established and running smoothly.

10%

Data and technology Data Our data is centralized, or integrated across business units, geographies, 5 - Strongly agree and departments. Our BI applications allow for easy drill- down from top-level 3 metrics to details, as well as drill-across from corporate-level metrics to 1 - Strongly disagree regional and LOB data. Single version of the truth is relatively easy to obtain from our reports and dashboards. When data is not 100% reliable, it is clearly marked so. Most of the data that is needed for analysis is available within our standard BI applications. Nearly 100% of the data needed for reporting and analytics is accessible via standard enterprise BI applications. Technology and standards Our BI technical infrastructure is centralized or integrated and leveraged across business units, geographies, and departments. We have few redundant or overlapping technologies. We adhere to BI technology standards. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

100% 15%

0.00

0.00

15%

10%

Data architecture

Our reporting/analytical data architecture EDW and/or hub-and-spoke and/or 5 - Strongly agree federated DW, etc., are designed for seamless, well-integrated: 3 - departmental, functional, and LOB usage, and 1 - Strongly disagree - for consolidated/corporate, intra-departmental, and cross functional reporting and analysis. Our reporting/analytical data architecture seamlessly supports - Strategic and operational decision-making. - OLAP (for physical aggregation and for business functionality such as time series analysis, allocations, etc). - Free-form analysis (not limited by data models). - Integrated historical and predictive analytics. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

10%

10%

Flexibility, agility

Our BI organizational structure, processes, and technology allow our BI applications to react quickly to business and regulatory changes

5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

10%

Response times

Reporting, query, and analysis response times are generally within reasonable, predictable, and expected time frames for most applications.

10%

Latency

Our reporting and analytical data is refreshed based on batch cycles that are 5 - Strongly agree agreed upon by all key stakeholders and satisfy most business requirements. 3 1 - Strongly disagree Our BI infrastructure and applications allow for the majority of new requests to be fulfilled by users themselves. Very rarely, if ever, do end users need to build and operate nonstandard, homegrown BI applications (using spreadsheets for example). Self-service BI is supported for all categories of users: information consumers, report/dashboard producers, power/super/advanced analysts. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

10%

Self service

10%

Copyright 2009, Forrester Research, Inc.

Measurement and adjustment Efficiencies We constantly measure and analyze BI resource utilization (servers, databases, tools, etc.) and proactively adjust, so that our BI environment is always highly optimized and efficient. We openly publish BI utilization metrics down to individual request/report/user level to monitor and adjust requests versus actual usage. Effectiveness We constantly measure and analyze our BI effectiveness such as turnaround 5 - Strongly agree time for BI requests or number of BI requests that are being self serviced by 3 end users. 1 - Strongly disagree We have a well-established methodology for measuring BI ROI and creating BI business cases. Our ROI on BI is very clear. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

100% 25%

0.00

0.00

25%

Clear ROI

25%

After a BI program, project, application is implemented, we go back and 5 - Strongly agree validate projected, expected ROI versus actual ROI. Most of the times actual 3 ROI is within reasonable close range to the projected ROI. 1 - Strongly disagree Keeping up with the latest trends Automation Our BI environment and applications are highly automated, with features like: 5 - Strongly agree Automated information discovery: We can automatically discover source 3 data based on metadata, content, and rules. 1 - Strongly disagree Actionable and collaborative: We can automate actions on results gleaned from BI reports and analysis. Contextual: BI is aware of process context. End-to-end life-cycle management: We can automatically change and update all BI components affected by a change. Our BI environment and applications are highly pervasive, with features like: Embedded in processes. Embedded in Information Workplace: integrated with all IW components: search, ECM, email, other office applications. Offline usage: seamless operation in offline/disconnected mode, including small-form devices, such as mobile phones. 5 - Strongly agree 3 1 - Strongly disagree

25%

100% 40%

0.00

0.00

Pervasiveness

20%

Unification

Our BI environment and applications allow for highly unified reporting and 5 - Strongly agree analysis, with features like: 3 Logically unified sources: logical views independent of physical data 1 - Strongly disagree location and model. Unified data and content: seamless integration of structured data and unstructured content. Unified disk and streaming data: seamless integration of data stored in diskbased DBMS (historical, batch) and in streaming, in memory DBMS (real time). Unified historical, current, and predictive: seamless integration of historical, current, and predictive reporting and analysis. Our BI environment and applications allow for exploration and analysis 5 - Strongly agree without borders, with features like: 3 On-demand, adaptive data models: reporting and analysis without 1 - Strongly disagree limitations of underlying data models (our power users rarely have to use spreadsheets or other home grown BI applications). Unlimited dimensionality - advanced data visualization: ability to visually analyze tens, hundreds, and thousands of dimensions at the same time. Exploration + analysis (guided analysis): seamless integration of search-like technology to find the data and BI-like technology to report and analyze the results of the search.

20%

No borders

20%

Contributing vendors: IBM and SAS Institute

2009, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.

Copyright 2009, Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester Research, Inc.

Forrester's BI Maturity Assessment Tool

September 2009 by Boris Evelson with Connie Moore, Rob Karel, James Kobielus and Charles Coit [Company name] Current state score
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Forrester clients * Target score

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Section
Overall score Governance and ownership Organization Processes Data and technology Measurement and adjustment Keeping up with the latest trends

Weight
100% 20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 10%

Score
2.08 2.00 2.50 2.50 2.50 1.50 1.50

* not a statistically significant average, but rather a qualitative assessment based on client interactions

Governance and ownership 5.00 4.00 Keeping up with the latest trends 3.00 2.00 1.00 0.00 [Company name] Forrester clients * Organization

Measurement and adjustment

Processes

Data and technology

2009, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.

Copyright 2009, Forrester Research, Inc.

Governance and ownership 5.00 4.00 Keeping up with the latest trends 3.00 2.00 1.00 0.00 Current state score Target score Organization

Measurement and adjustment

Processes

Data and technology

Copyright 2009, Forrester Research, Inc.