Business Intelligence for the Enterprise

Mike Biere

1 Good for managers, too generic to be used by DW developers
The author is an IBM veteran who spent more than 20 years in the sales and product support divisions, except for a short period in a company specialized in Data Warehousing, so he naturally puts in this book a lot of his experiences and he also describes the history of BI in terms of architectures and technologies.

I had the impression that the target audience is mainly made by managers involved in BI projects, on either sides (vendors, consulting companies, customers).

One obvious comment from an Italian like me is that, like with many other books written in the US, the average size of the projects described in this book is rather large compared to what we are used to, and could only be applied to a handful of companies here in Italy.

The best feature of the book is the large number of real life examples that it contains. This can be a real help for a manager of a company who doesn't know the risks connected with BI projects and wants to learn from the many (and sometimes very costly) errors made by other people and companies in similar situations.

Under this aspect the book contains a lot of common sense and is a good reading, but don't look in it for innovative contents or for clear explanations of key technologies, buzzwords and project methodologies.

In most cases the book is limited to describe different situations (usually problematic), and to give some advise, without really delving into technical details.

Often I saw the author asking himself several questions about the typical problems that are encountered in a BI project, but then I couldn't find the answers.

Although there are no references to specific products, in more than one occasion it seems that the fact that the author comes from IBM comes to the surface, like when he prefers the "single provider" approach versus the "best of breed" (Chap. 4), or when he talks about the qualities of the mainframe as opposed to distributed environments (chap 7).

In conclusion, is this book worth reading? I have to say that whenever I read a book about BI and Data Warehousing I can't avoid comparing it with the books from Mr Kimball, which I consider the absolute reference in the field. This might not be fair, but it makes sense, since our time is limited, to read only those books that add something new to what we already know.

In this case the answer is yes, but only for a specific target, i.e. managers of companies who are about to start their first BI project. The rest of the project team would probably find most of the information in this book not very useful.

2 A thoughtful and thought-provoking book about BI ...
The tji-Boston reviewer is dead-on correct that this is a frank discussion about BI. Biere will help you to think about BI, and he will help you to think clearly.

Business Intelligence for the Enterprise is written for the customer. The author is a sales guy, who works for a vendor (IBM - Good Grief!), AND he has written a book for the customer. Why?

He is obviously interested in seeing Enterprise BI succeed.

This book will help you think through sales hype, and move closer to success. In a certain sense, it is a book written to help business people like you deal with sales people like Mike Biere. Ironic? Yes. And no.

A perspective like this doesn't come from being slick and clever (goodness knows there is an endless array of slick and clever sales people.) Rather, it comes from making a mature commitment to one's working life, which Biere has obviously done.

It is as important for the C-level IT professionals to read as it is for their C-level bosses and colleagues. Needless(?) to say it is also an important read for those who are going to do the actual work of implementing the BI strategy.

Read this book, but only if you are willing to spend some time thinking....

3 For once -- a business book about technology and a MUST READ
......

If you:

- are tired of the increasingly unintelligible hype around corporate IT

- need to get your feet on the ground about how to apply IT for creating business value

- want to understand business intelligence for what it can really do for your organization (as opposed to what the product vendors tell you)

then read this book.

I've been in the software industry for twenty years, and this is one of those rare, honest books that speaks from long experience and with a welcome disregard for technical faddism and ivory tower theory.

This book is needed because the idea of "information at your fingertips" at most companies is still just that: only an idea. Instead, most organizations still operate inefficiently and clumsily from "islands" of information scattered about in everything from spreadsheets to CRM systems to mainframe COBOL programs whose authors have long since retired.

Even companies that have spents millions of dollars to correct this state of affairs have failed. Why?

This book is about making information available across the board, why you would want to, and how to give your technology of choice "traction" and an impact on the bottom line.

This is done from two perspectives: the technical and the human side.

The author is refreshingly frank in describing corporate IT disasters, and does an excellent job of exposing the human side of where they go wrong down in the trenches. Anyone who has been anywhere near an overbudget, underperforming, or ultimately worthless IT project (this should include most people in corporate IT by now) will read with a smile of recognition. Others should read before you spend: there is a lot of money and heartache to be saved. By demonstrating in everyday language that the hardest part to manage is human expectations, Biere performs a real service to the industry that is usually neglected, and gives managers, end users, and even vendors much insight on where to be proactive.

But this is not a collection of anecdotes. CIOs, CEOs, IT professionals, and beginners will gain a lot from the industry retrospectives, overviews of categories of tools, and the workbook approach for grasping the human side and the technical side at once. The author provides thinking and homework that MUST be done before even considering an expenditure, and asks the questions that even the most expensive consultants won't ask for you.

Because the author is with IBM, you might expect the book to promote IBM products. Not so. Mr. Biere manages to name almost no products, and yet covers the tools available comprehensively.

And college computer science professors: put this book in your curricula -- give your students a healthy dose of the "real world" before sending them out into it.

Well done, Biere.