With the development of the transistor in 1947, humanity entered into a new epoch in our history: the Information Age. Where grain or gold once represented the standard currency of our economies, information has overtaken them as the driving force of all industry and communication.
If information really is everywhere, why is it still so hard to get the right data into the right hands? That’s been one of the defining challenges of my professional career in business intelligence, and it’s one I’m proud to provide more information on now. Any great business intelligence system is driven by information delivery.
Information Delivery is the foundation of all communication in business and industry. To put it in simple terms, Information Delivery is the art of making sure that information – the way it is presented and delivered – communicates what is intended to the reader or viewer. In the business world, this means getting information into the right hands in a purposeful and efficient manner.
As part of our implementation philosophy, we develop reports or dashboards which are then distributed to end users (your business and its consumers) within set parameters or filters. End consumers can range anywhere from executives to board members, investors, or consumers. In many cases, users are just consumers – the sole purpose of the BI system, in their case, is to run a report. Log in once, or not at all – check the numbers, then move on with their day.
A poor design example that could benefit from implementing Information Delivery, for example, would be a new hires report that gets continuously copied as new for a new office, when only the filters truly needed to be changed. This compartmentalization of information, the splitting of essential data into unnecessary silos, introduces unwanted clutter into the business intelligence system. Additionally, this is an inefficient practice for HR teams.
As the world grows more and more interconnected, fears of information overload become more and more realistic. An intrinsic part of any efficient Information Delivery system is to deliver information in a timely method in order to prevent this overload. Additionally, user experience and interface go a long way towards making sure information is digested and acted upon properly.
Information Delivery can sound so vague and all-encompassing that the particulars of its usefulness may not be clear initially. At Blueprint Intelligence, we cannot overstate the importance of clear Information Delivery.
First and foremost, a concise system like the ones we can design and implement for you make sure that data gets to customers in an easy and recognizable method (such as spreadsheets or emails, for example).
Additionally, reusing report content for applicable shared services helps to reduce maintenance and clutter. Would you rather create separate reports to satisfy each individual customer, or simply use one reliable master report that works and can be reused to satisfy multiple users or user groups?
Another overlooked (but very cost-effective) side effect of our Information Delivery system is the reduction of licensing costs, since end consumers and users do not require a login to the BI system.
At Blueprint Intelligence, we are business transition experts and specialize in decoding business logic into reliable insights that actually work. The truth is, there is no “one size fits all” approach in Information Delivery. Our solution-oriented mindset identifies the right communication methods to match your strategy, goals, and ultimately, the success of your project.
We plan the success of your Business Intelligence and Information Delivery journey with clear, results-driven milestones from initial conception to the final product. Our end-to-end service support ensures you are getting the most value out of your data with user training in data access and Information Delivery tools.
