According to several users here at the Computerworld BI Perspectives conference, Hammering out data governance policies and garnering executive buy-in are two of the thorniest issues when companies extend business intelligence throughout the enterprise.

During an impromptu electronic poll of users at the conference, 40% of those surveyed said that effective management of change control, including the consistency of data and common data definitions, is one of the most typical challenges to the "democratization of BI," or providing access to more users across the enterprise. In another poll, 43% of users said that top management's lack of understanding of the value of BI is the biggest cultural barrier to BI adoption, while 25% said that departmental silos in their enterprises and a lack of a BI competency center are the biggest impediments.

Example

M.C. Sankar, vice president of enterprise applications development at TD ameritrade Holding Corp., said his company is using a BI competency center to help various business units reach a common definition of how they characterize data.

"The business units have been very satisfied working in silos," he said. "Without [common metadata], you can be looking at the same data and be making two different decisions."

This common metadata model will be key as the company moves to marry its BI analysis into the processes of its front-line workers, such as call center representatives, he added.

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Prashanth Rai