Best practices when offshoring business intelligence Essay Example for Free

Best course sessions when offshoring business intelligence EssayTed Kempf in his article in VarBusiness attribute Gartner Dataquest with the following definition for Business Intelligence a user-centered process for of exploring selective information, data relationships and trends, thereby helping improve overall decision making (Kempf, 2001). US companies right away are setting up business-intelligence technology for the purpose of processing the incessant flow of information they receive. These companies gather this information so they can maintain and shew customer relationships and make sound business decisions in a timely manner.A Gartner Dataquest study revealed that the primary reason for companies investing in business-intelligence applications is to ensure they prolong available the information to assist them in making real-time business decisions. Even though the current trend is to outsource IT initiatives overseas to save costs, the rule in doing the same for b usiness intelligence is questionable. This is because business intelligence (like data ware housing) is not a technical exercise and requires business knowledge. It is iterative and business-focused in nature (Consilvio, 2003).She insists that offshoring BI presents the biggest risk for ETL (extract, transform and load) because it is grossly underestimated. For this reason, Robert Mitchell, in his article in Computerword, even goes as far as saying that the threat for offshoring is exaggerate (Mitchell, 2006). In her article for Computerworld, Maria Consilvio lists some of the best practices for offshoring business intelligence. They include ? Set up tight specifications ? Start with an approach similar to staff-augmentationDefine proceeds levels which are appropriate for your expectations. ? Keep an onshore presence as representation for the business knowledge. This enables the life cycle to be quick turn. ? Ensure that the development team up is reactive to feedback so that bus iness feedback can be translated to technical specifications. ? Offshore the long term projects with more stable requirements. ? Ensure requirements are defined to practically(prenominal) a level that the technical resource does not necessarily have to have the business knowledge.Determine beforehand the restrictions placed on exiting the contractas such contracts whitethorn not have defined end or start dates as a result of the fluid nature of BI. ? Audit offshore tools and, as much as possible, insist on scalable tools. ? Equip the onshore team with systems integration, project management and deliver management skills In support of the best practice procedures above, William McKnight of McKnight Associates suggests the following as excerpted from his 2003 article in ComputerworldON-SITE * Set up benchmarking and service-level criteria * Establish business rules * Maintain (create/translate) business knowledge * Involve users in data warehouse decisions * Ensure application supp ort after development OFF-SITE * Set up an enforcement mechanism for business rules * Establish expertise in tools, such as data cleansing, automated extractors, dashboards and real-time delivery * Application development * Application support and project maintenance REFERENCES Consilvio, Jean.(2003). BI Last to Leave. Computerworld, December 12. Kempf, Ted. (2001). Business-Intelligence Apps Companies lack them, but are emerging integrators prepared to deliver? VarBusiness, November 6. McGee, Marianne Kolbasuk. (2006). You Vs. Offshoring U. S. tech pros are surprisingly upbeat, and pay is on the rise. But the job outlook is anything but strong and fuzzy. InformationWeek, April 24. Mitchell, Robert L. (2006). Why Good Technologists Are Hard to Find. Computerworld, March 20.