Business Intelligence: Business & Tech Together

March 10, 2025

min

Reporting

In the world of BI and analytics, it is easy to get caught up in the latest tools, features and capabilities. Let’s pause for a moment though, and remember what is the ultimate goal of Business Intelligence… well, in a nutshell I like to say it’s about “improving the decision making process”. How? Well it’s not just about the technology, it’s about the people, how they operate in the business and how processes are structured to enable data-driven decision making. Of course technology supports both of these. It’s all three coming together.

Here’s the thing though, I find more focus being on everything tech. Not saying it’s not important, just saying from my experience this takes the lime light and energy, whilst the others are many times a nice to have or worse, a battle to win people over to them. So, it’s not about building the most efficient data pipelines, writing DAX, aligning data models to best practice… it’s about making an organisation be in a better position to make decisions that drive growth!

What’s the point of investing the big £££ in a data platform, only to deliver crap reports (no insights) at the end. Where is the ROI?!

As Power BI consultants and data experts, we are constantly surrounded by discussions about new tools, features and capabilities. And sure, these things matter, but they are not what makes a solution truly impactful. And look, I totally get that AI is changing the game and even I have plenty more to learn on that front. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to lay the right foundations. The reality is, many businesses have not even built a solid BI foundation yet. They are not using BI to answer the core business questions that actually drive value.

At the end of the day, real value comes from understanding people’s needs and the business context, the challenges, goals, ambitions, and decisions the organisation is trying to drive. A beautifully designed report, a highly optimised solution or a feature-rich tool, a function of data professionals coming together to talk data means nothing if it don’t help people make better decisions. We need to focus on the business first, not just the technology.

Tech Is an Enabler, Not the Goal

I mentioned ROI earlier - let’s zoom into it. I remember a conversation with a few people from different industries (manufacturer and retail), all working in data, so we got a mix of perspectives. At one point, we talked about the business benefit of implementing a data solution. Some answers? “Automating manual reports”, “consolidating all data”, etc. Okay, I agree, these are good, but they are technical improvements, not actual business benefits or the ROI. No doubt they improve efficiency, but the real question is "what impact does that efficiency have on the business?". That is where my mind goes, and here are some examples:

· Retail: Increase profit by reducing stockouts, optimise inventory allocation and markdowns, ensuring the right products are in the right place at the right time.

· Manufacturing: Lower operational costs by monitoring and preventing unexpected equipment failures, reducing downtime, and optimising production efficiency.

· Healthcare: Improve patient care and cost efficiency by reducing unnecessary treatments, optimising resource allocation, and preventing readmission.

· Financial Services: Strong risk management and compliance by preventing financial fraud in real-time and avoiding regulatory penalties.

· Hospitality and Travel: Increase revenue per customer by dynamically adjusting pricing and tailoring offers to increase bookings and repeat business.

So, What Should Businesses Focus On?

After the above examples like reducing stockouts or preventing equipment failures, it should be more clear that the ROI isn’t about what the tech does… it’s about what the business achieves. Instead of asking "What can this tech do?” we should shift the conversation to:

· What decisions will this improve?

· What business outcomes will change?

· How does this drive revenue, reduce cost or mitigate risk?

· How does this help users get closer to their objectives?

Asking these questions instead forces us to start with the objective or challenge, not the tool/tech.

How This Translates to Better Solutions

I’m of course going to give a Power BI example so we can understand the above more.

The Tech-First Approach: A retailer asks for a sales performance dashboard. The BI team asks “what do you want” and “how do you want to see it”. From this, they build a report showing total revenue, profit margins and product performance. But when the business users see it, they ask: “How does this help us hit our objectives?”

The Business-First Approach: A retailer asks for a sales performance dashboard. Instead of starting with Power BI, we have a structured conversation with the audience, so the actual end-users of the solution. We ask tailored questions to derive answers to “where are you trying to go”, “why are you trying to go there”, “how do you know if your moving towards it”, “if you aren’t, what might be causing it”, “what actions can you take to fix it”, “what’s the business process to do this”. Notice… no tech talk! So, we discover their real drive. The result? A solution that not only shows figures but also aligns to the business’ core objectives and challenges, therefore driving real action.

To Finish Up

Creating impactful solutions is not about just the tech, it is about enabling better decisions. It is not about creating reports, but about driving action and solving business challenges. By shifting our focus to the business and its people, we stop delivering reports that just look good and start delivering solutions that actually make a difference.