When targeting small and mid-sized companies, many vendors identify a lack of IT infrastructure as a key differentiator in relation to these companies’ enterprise counterparts. Consequently, there is the assumption that small and mid-sized enterprises do not have the same communication issues that exist between business units and internal IT departments. In reality, however, the issues that affect enterprise organizations are also present and, in some cases, pervasive within SMBs. Any organization that has two separate factions required to work together without an understanding of the importance of the other will encounter issues in communication. Recognizing differences and learning how to overcome problems is a topic that is constantly discussed but undervalued in terms of the power it can yield within the organization. Even though small and mid-sized companies may have fewer overall employees, the ability to communicate effectively with various departments within the organization is still an important aspect to getting the most out of a business intelligence (BI) environment.

Due to the increase in role-based solutions and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, the potential to deploy business intelligence at the departmental level or have a solution hosted offsite means that IT involvement may not be a factor. For organizations that choose to implement a solution in house, the capacity to properly communicate business pains, the needs of the business unit and the ability of IT to help support the business requirements can make or break the perceived success of any BI solution. Therefore, organizations are required to develop a strategy: 1) that helps integrate IT departments into operational activities to move from infrastructure support toward becoming operational enablers, and 2) that creates a partnership between business units and IT whereby both parties work together and develop a joint ownership when developing business solutions using technology.

To take this one step further, in an article written by Mark Chillingworth in 2008, he quoted Richard Steel, CIO of London local authority Newham, as saying that "individual services within a business have a good understanding of the department's goals and what they can achieve, but what they don't understand is what other departments can offer to really add value to that service. There is too much compartmentalization." In essence, the issue of communication between IT and business units is not one sided. Each business unit has its own worldview, making it difficult to understand different perspectives and roles within the organization. In order to overcome this roadblock to communication, it becomes important for organizations to understand the value of having cross-departmental workgroups as well as the importance of educating business units and IT departments about other departments and their respective functions.

Integrating IT to Help Support Business Functions

Many organizations have gone back and forth over a number of years integrating IT staff among business units to ensure that the business gets the most out of the systems they are using. The purpose of this is to help IT departments better understand what goes on daily within the business, become subject-matter experts, and maintain and develop solutions that best meet the requirements of decision makers and end users. When successful, the IT resource becomes a bridge between the IT department and respective business unit to ensure that needs are being met and that the business value is being translated into actual applications for the business instead of becoming an additional request.

By shifting IT from a purely supportive role toward becoming an active member of the business community, the business can begin to see IT resources as not only a member of their team, but also as a link to increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the systems being used daily. With business intelligence specifically, because IT resources have a broader understanding of the inner workings of these solutions, including potential performance or integration issues, as well as an understanding of the importance of data, they can help gather business requirements and ensure higher levels of communication. This can then translate into better defined KPIs and more targeted analytics. In addition, business users become more adept at understanding how their business requirements and the performance indicators they seek interrelate with the information they seek.

Building a Partnership Between Business Units and IT Departments

Although theoretically practical, building actual cohesion between business units and IT departments may not be as straightforward as developing diverse teams and integrating employees from separate departments to create a single unit. To achieve actual cohesion, organizations should develop a framework that takes into account the steps required to ensure that both sides understand the importance of the other and how each party will work with one another to enhance the current environment. For instance, IT should learn the goals of the various business units and change their language by using vocabulary that is understood by the individuals they are working with and that ties into the department’s goals. Instead of talking about data, it becomes important to discuss the information required to answer questions. Whether these questions include “Are we meeting our sales quotas?” or “How do we know if our marketing strategy for the next quarter will be effective?”, the ability to discuss how information interrelates on a business level can help bridge the gap between both departments.

This new understanding that is formed by increased communication from each side will help when developing project plans, identifying service level agreements and setting overall expectations. Depending on the IT infrastructure, the amount of time to implement changes may extend beyond the desire of the business unit. By having open lines of communication, potential dissatisfaction can be overcome while enabling both sides to successfully complete their project tasks.

Conclusion

Building cohesion between IT departments and business units is not easy. Each side has its own objectives and ways of seeing their roles within the overall structure of the organization. To create successful BI initiatives, it becomes important to work toward building communication channels between both groups of people. This includes developing integrated teams and building partnerships between departments so that each side of the equation is focused on a common set of goals. Tying this to lowering communication barriers helps create the building blocks to develop successful cross-functional teams focused on building better business intelligence projects.

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