Business intelligence software users urged to enter Gartner 2009 awards

Entry is open until January 16 via an online entry form, and companies need to provide a case study to describe their BI initiatives and why it demonstrates business excellence. Gartner analysts will then evaluate the entire against its BI and Performance Management Framework, which looks at six key areas. First is business strategy in which organisations need to show that they are measuring the success of their BI and PM programmes on how well they help the business achieve strategic and operational objectives. Gartner makes the point that defined business strategies and objectives are critical to the success of any BI or PM initiative. Second is performance management – with Gartner explaining that, since the goal of PM is to link operational activities with business strategy, defining the metrics is key. People and Processes is the third component: Gartner says that this layer should characterise the users and processes, and explain how information and analysis is employed to drive changes. Fourth is the analytic applications themselves – the components of the BI and PM vision and plan. Gartner suggests that the links between the PM layer and analytic applications are defined here and should detail how the analytic applications contribute to achieving the performance objectives. Fifth is the BI platforms, with this layer defining the combination and relative priority of capabilities that different users require from their analytic applications, and how these capabilities are being addressed. Finally, the information management infrastructure is number six, the ;point being to address how the data architecture and data integration infrastructure (themselves foundations of any enterprise BI initiative) can ensure efficiency and agility. “BI and PM initiatives must be integral to the business strategy and execution in order to drive maximum value from these initiatives,” comments Kurt Schlegel, Gartner research director and BI Summit co-chair. “As such, the related technology and applications must be core to IT architecture and applications portfolio. The BI Excellence Award honours the company that has shown leadership in leveraging information assets coupled with business intelligence to drive business performance to new levels.”