A Demand-driven Approach to BI
P.J. Jakovljevic - July 20, 2005

Demand-driven BI Approach

Vanguard Solutions Group, Inc., is a Chicago, IL-based, business intelligence (BI) provider that reportedly achieved major successes in 2004. The core concept behind their solution is that BI must be demand-driven, which means that the business needs of the user dictate the technical solution, not the other way around. In other words, it should let the business users drive the process, and remove the problems of content relevance and software complexity. Namely, although IT-driven BI projects frequently do not deliver what the business users need, Vanguard has come to an understanding that the BI development cycle is inherently iterative and open-ended and that therefore the business decision maker needs to "own" the process. Thus, the vendor's solution addresses the problem of content relevance by making the underlying data architecture transparent to the users, who have access to information from multiple systems, platforms, or locations, and view it in a functional user interface...