|
It's ironic! In finding business solutions, information
technology, business management and analyst groups within an organization share
a common goal-yet their approaches are often so independent of each other that
they may be working at cross purposes.
IT managers may be focused on architecture, function and
standards, but lack any real understanding of what business users do. Business
managers and analysts understand the business need, but do not have the
technical background to develop solutions that support it.
Finding a common ground for information technology and business
to develop business solutions together and in a consistent, cost effective
manner is the key. That's the concept behind competency centers. A competency
center is an organization that defines, refines, documents, and promotes best
practice BPM and BI within an organization.
Besides, a BI competency center must include a core team of
relevant business, analytical, and technical personnel in addition to a center
manager. The scope of a competency center can range from providing advice to
full applications development and support.
Is the Need Real?
Competency centers provide a great way for companies to dedicate some of
their most talented individuals for solving business problems using business
performance management technologies. A mix of both business people and
technologists creates the most successful competency center models-a balance
of individuals who deeply understand how technology supports business
requirements and know how to apply the right application to solve the right
business need.
Organizations often do not have a corporate memory. In every
project, they use a different team, a different technology-possibly even
different business semantics. Project teams end up building solutions from
scratch, even if the solution is one that has been implemented many times
before. Rather than referring to a "portfolio" of successful
applications, the team starts from the beginning and may even repeat the same
mistakes made in prior implementations.
Without a common knowledge system, based on common practices,
processes, and methodologies, a company can't leverage what it has learned
from previous projects. Worse, it is unable to provide insight into operations
and performance that will enable it to make better decisions moving forward.
Best Practices
Unquestionably, having uniform best practices are less costly and enable
organizations to more effectively support strategic business goals. It's not
about establishing a common technology-though it is certainly helpful-but
about leveraging resources that have been allied to build on each other's
strengths. Of prime importance is the creation of a source for centralized
knowledge. Success depends on a clear and consistent process for documentation
that will be used to create an ongoing collection of best practices.
| The
beauty of a competency center is that it makes organizations smarter.
Without a common knowledge system, based on common practices, processes,
and methodologies, a company can't leverage what it has learned from
previous projects |
How do I Set it Up?
Though it might sound strange, but the finance department of an organization
should ideally initiate the competency center project. Recognizing that the
fragmented approach to developing business solutions is costly, the CFO or some
other leader in finance needs to pull together a charter for the organization.
The second step is to create a team with members from three key
areas-business people who understand the business priorities and the language
of business, an analyst with a background in operations and statistics who can
take quantitative information and transform it into empirical analysis, and
technologists who understand integration and data quality.
While internal members of these groups will form the core team
in the competency center, systems integrators will also be of prime importance
in supplementing the team when necessary. Once assembled, the team should enter
an "incubation" period in which there is a knowledge transfer among
the various disciplines. At the end of this period, the technologist understands
more about analysis and business. The business expert has an increased
understanding of analysis and technology, and the analyst knows more about
business and technology.
With this increased strength in cross-functional areas, the team
is ready to tackle its responsibilities. These will include standardization and
consolidation of tools, technologies, metadata and data marts; education of
business users; user needs analysis; prototyping, development, training, support
and enhancements; and documentation of best practices. As deployments roll out,
the team will also be responsible for building a portfolio of applications for
re-use.
Building a competency center is neither fast nor inexpensive,
though organizations can expect an eventual return on investment thanks to the
efficiencies realized through best practices and strategic deployment. Funding
should be approached through a "venture capital" model for a 12- to
18-month period. During this period, projects will be done at no cost, to
compensate for risk and to start building a portfolio. Beyond 18 months,
organizations should expect cost recovery only. Though not a moneymaker on
paper, a competency center should already have established its value-competency
centers that are serving the business rarely need to defend their costs.
The Rewards
The beauty of a competency center is that it makes organizations smarter.
Drawing on the team's experience and expertise for strategic deployments
increases efficiency and productivity. It enables better decision-making and
makes the best use of the organization's resources. Ultimately, all benefits
translate into increased profitability. All it takes is commitment from a
forward-thinking organization to invest in right people and right processes.
Howard Dresner
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
The author is chief strategy officer at Hyperion Page(s) 1
| 
Print
Comment
Email
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Twitter
