Deloitte assessment recommends creation of BI community

When Tom Howa arrived at the U a year and a half ago, he identified an immediate need for a Business Intelligence (BI) initiative with a more holistic focus.

Howa, associate director for University Support Services’ BI group, explained that, “Business intelligence, historically, never quite fits into a normal group.”

Some BI groups will report directly to the business itself; others will report to IT. The U’s BI group is unique in that it touches both of these areas.

“In the end, we aren’t just providing IT solutions, and we aren’t just answering business questions,” Howa said. “We have to do both.”

Currently, there are multiple departments and entities on campus that have their own BI groups and/or processes – including Finance, HR, and the Office of the Registrar – and each have their own ways of reporting. This inconsistency in reporting can dilute the accuracy of the data, upon which data-driven business decisions are based.

“There are these little pockets of knowledge and different definitions everywhere [on campus],” said Howa. “But in the end, everyone on campus should be following a standard BI framework.”

This idea aligns closely with one recommendation that came from the University IT assessment by Deloitte Consulting, which proposes the creation of a BI community at the U.

“If any group is willing to help develop best practices in BI on campus, they should become part of this community,” said Howa.

The BI group has worked dilligently on a business case to support this idea, which was submitted to leadership a few months ago.

“In essence, we’ve been working towards a BI center concept anyways, and we’re going to keep working towards it, even if this business case isn’t approved,” said Howa. “The main goal is to bring together all of the specialized knowledge and technical abilities and toolsets that the campus has, so that we best utilize our resources.”

If all goes as planned, one of the first priorities will be to roll out orderable services in the Service Catalog – such as data management, dashboards, and report and analysis requests.

The BI group will also be searching for key stakeholders to be involved in the initiative.

“If anyone is interested in hearing more about the plan, or would like to get into more details of what services we’re offering, I’d love it if people would contact me now,” said Howa. “If we can hone in on what data groups really need, then we can make sure our priorities are aligned.”

“I think we have a lot of extremely intelligent resources that are available here,” he added. “When we’ve been bringing these groups together, we’ve been able to do some really big and cool things that just weren’t possible before.”

If interested in learning more about the BI community and its goals, please contact Tom Howa at tom.howa@utah.edu or 801-587-2154.

 

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