Why Governance is Essential in the Implementation of Power BI

By Team CR Tuesday, 11 February 2020

Why Governance is Essential in the Implementation of Power BI

Data is the lifeblood of any business in this era due to increasing digitization and technological innovation. However, 80% of this data is unstructured and is virtually useless until companies can make sense of it. Fortunately, with powerful self-service business intelligence software such as Microsoft’s Power BI, SMBs, and large businesses alike can now gain tangible value from the mountains of data they amass every day. But there’s a catch to it. While this software enables businesses to make sense of data, without proper Power BI governance, it can go from boon to bane real quick. Read on to see why governance is essential in the implementation of Power BI.

Power BI Governance Facilitates Trust in the Platform

Although change is inevitable, it’s not always welcome. In that light, while Power BI enables businesses to collate, analyze, and derive meaningful insights from data more efficiently, implementing it in an enterprise that already has well-established traditions and favoured tech is a mean feat.

Why is this so? Since they’re already used to a particular system, most employees will often find the new solution less intuitive. Besides being used to their old system, most employees often lack trust in the new platform because they weren’t involved in the implementation process.

However, through Power BI governance, the implementation process is often smooth sailing. This is because everyone who touches Power BI is brought up to speed on how it’ll affect their role and also how to use the software in a way that’ll make their work easier.

Governance Drives Innovation

Apart from enhancing operations and increasing productivity, proper Power BI governance also drives innovation. As noted, most staff are often reluctant about new technology at the workplace because they have no idea how it works and are already used to doing things a certain way. For instance, if you’re upgrading the reporting process from Excel to Power BI, most staff will hold back because they have no idea how to go about it.

Through governance, your staff will not only be brought up to speed with how the platform works but also will be trained on the best development practices. This knowledge coupled with their understanding of organizational data enables them to manipulate the platform and come up with innovative solutions. This significantly reduces the time spent on report planning and implementation processes. As a result, it promotes organizational efficiency and productivity.

Enables Your IT Team to Focus on Other Essential Roles

Before the onset of business intelligence software, regular employees would have to submit any data analysis or automation requests to the organization’s IT team. They would then have to wait until their requests are approved and whatever they required built. This was often time consuming, and would result in internal delays. Now thanks to solutions like Power BI, employees with no knowledge of coding can do more with the data themselves without the help of the IT desk.

This enables your IT team to focus on more important issues and to come up with innovative solutions to enhance business operations. But what does governance have to do with this? Well, it’s through governance that employees gain end-user knowledge on Power BI and as a result, have no need to turn to IT for support.

Although Power BI was developed as a self-service solution, without proper governance, the platform tends to restore the very issues that it was supposed to help organizations address. These include inconsistent and inaccurate information and hard to replicate processes. That is why you should ensure you partner with a reputable Power BI governance company to walk your organization through the implementation process.

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