How do you support business intelligence and analytics?

1 Understand the business needs

The first step to support BI&A is to understand the business needs and goals of your stakeholders. You need to communicate with them and ask questions to clarify their expectations, requirements, and challenges. You also need to understand the data sources, data quality, and data governance policies that affect the BI&A projects. By understanding the business needs, you can align your IT solutions with the desired outcomes and deliver value to your stakeholders.

2 Choose the right tools and platforms

The next step is to choose the right tools and platforms for BI&A. There are many options available in the market, such as cloud-based services, on-premise software, or hybrid solutions. You need to evaluate the features, benefits, and costs of each option and select the one that best suits your organization's needs and budget. You also need to consider the scalability, security, and compatibility of the tools and platforms with your existing IT infrastructure and data sources.

4 Provide data access and security

Once the data warehouse is ready, you need to provide data access and security to the BI&A users and applications. You need to set up the appropriate roles, permissions, and policies that will control who can access what data and how. You also need to monitor and audit the data access and usage to prevent unauthorized or malicious activities. You also need to protect the data from loss, damage, or theft by implementing backup, recovery, and encryption methods.

5 Optimize the performance and availability

Another important aspect of supporting BI&A is to optimize the performance and availability of the data warehouse and the BI&A tools and platforms. You need to monitor and measure the key performance indicators (KPIs) such as response time, throughput, and error rate. You also need to identify and resolve any issues or bottlenecks that may affect the performance or availability. You also need to plan and execute regular maintenance, updates, and upgrades to ensure the reliability and functionality of the BI&A systems.

6 Train and assist the users

The last step is to train and assist the users of the BI&A systems. You need to provide clear and comprehensive documentation, tutorials, and manuals that will help the users understand how to use the BI&A tools and platforms. You also need to provide technical support and troubleshooting services that will help the users solve any problems or difficulties they may encounter. You also need to collect and analyze the user feedback and suggestions that will help you improve the BI&A systems and services.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?