The Training Barrier

Application integration is a big problem for business intelligence professionals. So, of course, is data quality. But when it comes to BI challenges, those problems rank only No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, according to a recent poll.

InformationWeek Research recently carried out a survey of 300 business technology execs to get their views on business intelligence, how it's used, and where it's going. Sixty percent of respondents cited training as the single largest barrier to enterprise-wide BI deployments -- more daunting than any other challenge, including the two above and the lack of clear ROI from deployments.

That's saying something, considering the scope of integration and data quality troubles at companies across the board. In a popular story from Optimize magazine that we're running this week, the senior director of enterprise analytics at travel and restaurant conglomerate Carlson put a finer point on the training challenge. "My analogy is: I have an all-star team [of IT professionals] where individually everyone excels," said Larry Smith. "But learning how to work together is the key."

Is BI training a challenge at your organization? Do you possess the technical know-how to pull off BI deployments? Drop me a line, and share your story.