With technology limitations, high total costs of ownership and implementation barriers disappearing faster than a gin and tonic at William and Kate’s wedding, small to midsized business (SMB’s) can now use Business Intelligence solutions to dramatically improve competitive advantage in their business.
To be fair, I’m not a royalist and frankly cannot and don’t understand the all the fuss, but I guess the fact that I am even writing this implies I haven’t remained unaffected by it all. Yesterday I even caught myself laughing when I heard a respected journalist on a respected global news channel (three letters starts with a C) referring to the “wedding of the century” with a dead pan face. Its 2011 for goodness sake, very few of us are likely to be around by the turn of this century so how is it possible to use such a label with such conviction. Besides, how do we know Michael Jacksons son won’t marry Madonna’s daughter in this century, or what if Donald Trump got together with Sarah Palin – that would be a fairy tale story, wouldn’t it? I deviate from the point I was hoping to make – which is how astonishing people are when it comes to consuming information about the royal wedding. Everything from sapphire engagement rings to diamond tiaras, dresses and shoes, no doubt even to the names of the lucky few horses that get to pull the bridal couples carriage. There is simply no end to the demand for information and, eventually getting to my point, this reflects the newfound demand for information which is reaching fever pitch in organizations fast realizing that the best way to address competitive forces and gain competitive advantage is by providing information to their people – not only to top-level executives, but to people throughout the organization from business-line managers to front-line employees. This trend toward distributing information widely throughout the organization, rather than locking it up where it can only be accessed by top executives only, is called the “democratization” of information and will have a profound effect on the effectiveness of SMB’s – in this decade to 2020 , let alone this century!
If technology allows the world to “democratize the information” about Will and Kate’s big day, watch out for how technology will help an SMB’s to share information to positively affect how business is done throughout an organization. Long live BI for the masses.
