Business intelligence in SharePoint - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 2

Much like an airplane, if a company is not steered, it will likely be off course most of the time.
Figure 1-1 shows an example of the analogy. Most companies have a goal or destination, some-
times called a vision, and to reach that destination, they rely on business insights. These insights are
provided by instruments or measurement tools that help monitor and analyze past, current, and
projected future performance. They give managers the information that they need to make changes,
or “course corrections.” Insights come in the form of reports, scorecards, KPIs, dashboards, and other
information vehicles, supported by a concept called “trusted data.”
FIGURE 1-1 A visual analogy of BI as the cockpit of an aircraft.
Tools such as these as well as others can help a company see the relationships between their busi-
ness and its highest priorities and strategies. Decision-makers want the visual experience that dash-
boards offer so that they can determine at a glance whether they're driving their company toward its
destination.
Fortunately, airplanes are predictably more successful at reaching their destinations than com-
panies are in successfully reaching their goals. Is this success due to the science and precision of the
measurement tools used in the aviation industry?
Over the years, weather conditions, patterns, and other variables that affect flight and direction—
originally considered immeasurable—have become increasingly more measurable and accurate. New
instruments were developed and produced to give pilots precise location coordinates.
Now, the same is occurring for businesses. In his topic How to Measure Anything: Finding the
Value of “Intangibles” in Business (2010, Wiley), Douglas W. Hubbard lists a few real-life examples of
variables that companies previously chose not to measure because they were presumed to be immea-
surable, including the following: