A decade or so ago, when Michael Schroeck began promoting Business Intelligence (BI), it was a second-tier, stand-alone technology that seemingly didn't have more than marginal value. Today, BI has finally gained widespread traction in the corporate world and is viewed as a critical strategic resource by many CEOs.
BI's acceptance is due in no small part to Schroeck, who at IBM has helped build the world's largest BI consulting practice, with more than 2,300 consultants providing solutions to 500-plus clients globally.
An early pioneer in integrated analytics, Schroeck began his efforts to move BI into the corporate mainstream when he was heading up PwC's consulting work in this arena in the mid-1990s. At the time, business intelligence consisted largely of compiling a slew of company- and customer-related information that was stored in the bowels of the IT department — hence the name "data warehousing," as the technology was then known.
That changed, says Schroeck, as corporations made big investments in ERP, CRM, and reengineering. "That was a tipping point," Schroeck says. "At the time, all a company's core information was sitting down in the transactions system. BI provided a way to get it out and get value out of it."
It wasn't until Schroeck joined IBM, however, as part of its 2002 acquisition of PwC Consulting, that BI began to prove its strategic worth and pop up with increasing frequency on the CEO radar screen. "As the economy slowed, businesses had to be far more scientific and consistent about making decisions," Schroeck explains. "Management needed to understand which customers were profitable, where to build loyalties, where to best allocate their resources." BI could provide answers to these questions. As a result, says Schroeck, executive leadership began to understand the value of more timely business information.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) gave BI a big boost. BI has served as one of the cornerstones in enabling companies to provide their boards, senior management, shareholders, and regulatory agencies with the accurate, timely, and transparent information that's needed to comply with Section 404 of Sarbanes. "Next is Section 409," Schroeck explains. "This stipulates that management report any material event within their organization or within the organization of a trusted third party within 48 to 72 hours."
In this instance, companies have to provide up-to-the-minute information not only on their own operations, but also on those of business partners, major customers, and the like with which they work. "For example," says Schroeck, "if one of your customers doesn't pay its bills, you've got to report that information promptly." SOX has proven an ongoing headache for publicly traded companies.
"There's a lot of pent-up frustration on the part of senior management in complying with SOX," says Schroeck, now global leader of BI for IBM Business Consulting Services. "They received very little value for their investment." Part of the challenge confronting Schroeck's BI group is to enable its clients to leverage their SOX investments down the road. Schroeck, who was recognized as a Distinguished Engineer for his work in focusing on advanced analytical solutions with IBM Research, works closely with IBM Research and its Center of Business Optimization to address this challenge.
"At the Center, we combine BI with analytics to address tough problems for clients," he explains. "At IBM, there's great synergy among products, services, and advanced research capabilities."
For a new breed of consultant such as Schroeck, who fuses information with advanced research to optimize business performance, this is clearly the right place at the right time. — Laton McCartney
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