Business Intelligence Applied: Implementing an Effective Information and Communications Technology Infrastructure

Determining a Starting Point

Deciding on a process improvement or a process innovation is complex and requires much analysis. The process must be thoroughly analyzed, then the business analyst will be able to determine whether the process can best benefit from incremental changes that bring about positive net benefits to the organization or whether it will instead take innovative changes to yield the maximum amount of benefit from the ICT implementation. When deciding whether to recommend improvement or innovation, the business analyst must consider the following factors:

• Is the process amenable to starting with a clean slate to bring about maximum benefit to the organization, or must the analyst make incremental changes to achieve the desired goal? The business analyst must define the starting point in the process change; should a clean-slate approach or an approach in which existing processes are modified be used?
• Business analysts must determine whether they have support from the managers who own the process—and thus the support to bring about the process change. Support and authority from the appropriate senior management is also necessary. This support will determine who participates in the process and ultimately drives the success of any process change initiative.
• It is important to determine the amount of risk an organization is willing to take during a process change initiative. One organization may believe that implementing an ERP solution that costs $5 million will cause ...