The largest CFO Networking Group in Middle East called MECA held an Innovation Summit around Business Intelligence (BI) in Dubai this month. The summit provided participants with an excellent overview of the opportunity that BI can bring to any organisation and how the CFO can make a difference.

I had the pleasure of being a panelist on ”What NOT to do with BI: Practical insights to improve your chances of a successful BI implementation”.

Here are my top 3 tips from the panel discussion for any CFO who is looking to implement a BI strategy: 

1.   CFOs must play a key role in driving an enterprise-wide, holistic approach to leveraging internal and external data as a strategic asset that can be leveraged in easy-to-use BI solutions by every single employee throughout the organisation.

2.   CFOs need a well planned, strategic approach to BI with the right organisational setup, enabled and trained employees and responsive processes to provide insights from relevant data — from both internal and external sources — with an enterprise BI solution.

3.   It is critical to work with the right business analytics consultancy partner who can help an organisation develop its BI strategy PRIOR to kicking off any BI project or purchasing a technology solution. 

If you follow these 3 tips, you will be setup for success! 

Marc Haberland