Guest Post - Why Business Intelligence is Failing HR Managers

Note: This guest post comes from Tom Malone, CEO of Accero.

In the past few years it seems like business intelligence has been all the rage. Vendors promise a tool that will help HR managers pull a seat up to the table with strategic insight gained through predictive analysis of the company’s own data.

However, according to analysts, most companies never achieve the results they expect with these tools. Why is it that business intelligence fails to live up to expectations? The answer can be found in time and resources.

Somewhere between the sales pitch for BI and the initial implementation of the product comes the realization that instead of a solution that serves up insightful analytics, they have a tool that, while powerful in potential, requires a ton of work before it can provide any useful insight.

Once a BI product has been purchased someone within the organization (usually HR & IT) must determine what key metrics they want, and what data they need to support those metrics.  Then they must couple the BI tool with other technologies such as a database and ETL tool (extraction, transformation and loading) to build a data-mart that manages and stores complex workforce data, automate a process to load data into the data mart, design each key metric as a chart, scorecard  or dashboard, build all the charts and dashboards, store them in a way that makes finding the right metric easy, tie each metric to a role-based security model and finally train their users in using the BI tool to slice and dice through the resulting metrics. 

As you can imagine, doing all of the above takes a lot of time, a lot of IT talent and a lot of money.  It is the number one reason why BI is failing HR managers and their organizations.

Do we need analytics solutions to help provide insight in the space? Absolutely. HR Managers are the best conduits for information into how an organization can encourage and reward employees, comply with laws, reduce labor costs and increase productivity and eliminate compliance risk. Are we there yet with easy-to-use tools and pre-defined solutions?   For most HR departments, the answer is no.

I’d be interested in your thoughts and personal experiences with this topic. Is BI working for you and within your organization or has it failed to live up to its promise?

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Tom Malone is CEO of Accero (formerly Cyborg) a Payroll, Human Resources and Human Capital Management software and service provider. Tom has over 25 years of experience in the software, computer services, and telecommunications industries.