BI Business Analysts Needed

Dataspace is looking for 2 business intelligence analysts for positions at clients in New York State.  These are true analyst, not developer-level, roles.  So, while a knowledge of BI technologies is necessary, the role will not entail actual BI development.

We will consider applicants for either contract or permanent employment.

• BI Analyst: 2 needed -need analysts with understanding of SQL/Cognos/SAS but they need to understand the tools conceptually, don’t need to be hands-on programmers
• This is truly a higher-level analyst role, not a developer role. Consultants will be responsible for tasks such as:

Gathering requirements from end users
Understanding the data flows between systems
Designing business processes & reworking data flows

• Required qualifications include:

Perfect verbal ability
Strong writing skills
Business analysis / user interview skills
Technical analysis & design skills

• Desired qualifications include:

Ideally understand healthcare and financial data
Knowledge of healthcare / health insurance industry
Knowledge of financial systems is a plus

• Duration: 6 months + likely extensions
• CONTRACTOR CANDIDATES MUST BE DIRECT EMPLOYEES OF THE CONTRACTING FIRM – NO SUBCONTRACTS

Detailed Role Description: Business Analyst Role Description

The Myth of Self Service BI

Business Process Driven BI – An Example

A quick example of how BI & BP (business process) should go hand in hand…

Working with statisticians from Central Michigan University, we’ve jointly developed PVForecaster, a product that allows hospital administrators to forecast their patient volumes on an hour-by-hour, specialty-by-specialty basis.  Tactically, the result is better control over scheduling and costs.  Strategically, PVForecaster helps administrators forecast changes in demand and react accordingly (e.g. build more capacity, etc.)

The PVForecaster  business process design is a good example of how BI (and predictive analytics) applications should integrate with business processes.  In our case, rather than just accepting data and ‘spitting’ out forecasts, users drive the system as follows:

1) A planner uses PVForecaster to develop a number of forecast scenaria for the hospital.  For example, what is expected to happen if we increase our advertising budget?  What if we reduce it?  What if our operating territory’s population increases by 2%?  Stays flat?  Decreases?

2) The planner uses the BI tool to  review these scenaria with hospital executives.  Together they decide which scenario will be the one that the entire hospital will work from.  They use a routine in the BI application to designate this as the ‘working assumption.’

3) Department managers from across the hospital are given access to the ‘working assumption’ forecast in the BI tool.  They can use the tool to slice and dice through this forecast along all the relevant dimensions (e.g. date, specialty, time of day, etc.).

4) Using this information, the department managers can plan accordingly.

Yes, we could analyze data and build forecasts without implementing this business process.  But, the tools may not ever get used.  They may become the unused toy of some isolated planner.  On the other hand, implement a business process wherein all the relevant parties have, and need, access to the BI tool to do their jobs and you’ve developed a powerful tool that will get used and will provide enormous value.

Do you have any other good examples of business process / business intelligence synergy?  Put them in your comments.  Thanks!

– Ben

Tying the BI tool to the user

Yes, a 747 and a Cessna can both be used to transport you from point A to point B but, isn’t the 747 a bit of overkill for the pilot who just wants to fly himself to the next airport for a $100 hamburger?  Well, in Business Intelligence (BI), many organizations buy a fleet of 747s when all they need is a few Cessnas – they buy tools that are powerful but overkill for most of their users.  A great example of this is when a company buys 7,000 licenses of an expensive, powerful OLAP tool, intending to outfit their entire staff with OLAP.  Is there a need for advanced online analytical processing (OLAP) in the company?  Almost certainly.  Are there 7,000 users who are going to slice and dice through their data?  Almost certainly not.

You can think about BI needs as a pyramid, small at the top and large at the bottom.  At the very top are a few analysts who use data mining tools to identify unexpected relationships and build predictive models by looking at huge data sets (Can you remember when the data mining companies were looking to put mining on every desktop?  Mining on every desktop?  Really?).

Just below the data miners is another, slightly larger, layer of folks who need to slice and dice through their data – the OLAP users.  These folks are looking for things like what products are selling well, in what regions and by which salespeople.

Next is the bulk of the pyramid – the folks in the field who are just trying to get their jobs done.  The folks who need BI to execute specific business processes: to see which customers receivables are over 30 days old; to see where maintenance crews have been assigned for the week; to do the actual day-to-day work of the company.  Do these folks need to slice and dice through huge quantities of data?  No.  These folks generally need a set of predefined reports which have a few flexible parameters for users to complete to specify exactly what data to report on.

While the major BI tool vendors sell their tools as allowing users to create their own reports and to slice and dice their data, the bulk of the pyramid never uses this capability.  Instead, when these tools are released to users they are released with libraries of pre-configured reports.  Most users never do more than use these reports or, occasionally, request new ones.

Once you understand this reality, you start to look at the concept of BI tool standards quite differently.  More on this in a future post.

Think you’re overbuying in BI?  Drop me a line.

– Ben