Operational Intelligence

Understanding oi

For your business

In an increasingly fast-paced and changeable world, it has never been more important for leaders to have access to real-time, contextualised intelligence. Which is why we believe that Operational Intelligence (OI) is the future of business; offering an enriched form of Business Intelligence (BI) or Management Information (MI) that helps you create holistic operational understanding.
 
OI is essential for any organisation that wants to maintain its agility in a complex and unpredictable business landscape whilst prioritising your greatest asset, people.
 
One of the most common misunderstandings we encounter is the difference between MI, BI, and OI.
 
So, what is Operational Intelligence and what can it do for your business?

Definitions

There are almost as many definitions of MI, BI, and OI as there are people who have attempted to capture them! So, first let's take a look at how we define OI and other related terms.

Management Information

Data or information relating to your organisation’s daily operational performance – including client volume, revenue figures, conversion rates. Largely focused on retrospective analysis of data, MI typically informs KPIs for your business. 

KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are ways to quantifiably measure performance over time. KPIs are related to any specific objectives your organisation has and should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound) e.g. turnover per area per month. 

Business Intelligence

A combination of business analytics, big data processing, and data visualisation tools. Usually collated in a software platform to analyse both internal and external factors relating to your organisation, including market trends and insight. Predominantly retrospective analysis of data with some predictive analytics. 

Operational Intelligence

The collation of information from across your organisation, combined with the creation of new intelligence by your people to inform business operations and decision-making. Focused on generating interconnecting, people-centred insight across your business in real-time.

Principles of Operational Intelligence

OI doesn't have a fixed structure or framework that must be followed - it is better categorised as a philosophical approach or set of principles. Which can make it tricky to get your head around to begin with! But OI's greatest strength is its flexibility - rather than being something you have to squeeze your business operations into, it adapts to your particular processes, procedures, and priorities. The core components of OI are:

1.

Information collectors
The methods by which you collect and collate information from a variety of sources.

2.

Analytics and machine learning
The tools that allow you to process and present your information in (near) real-time in order to promote insight and understanding.

3.

Actionable dashboards
The interactive expressions of your insight and understanding, designed to let you create baselines, set targets, and monitor change over time.

KPIs

This isn't a tool for tracking KPIs but the question sets and metrics you use to build information collectors should absolutely be tied to your organisation's KPI's. This will ensure the intelligence you create is as relevant as possible.

But really

What's the difference?

Standard MI and BI tools are designed to suck up information from your business systems and crunch the data, presenting it in attractive dashboards. It can help you to feel more in control of your business information. But what does that really tell you? Mostly what you already know, using historic or static data.
 
But what about what you don’t know?
Or what you don’t know you don’t know?
Or even what’s happening right now in your business?
 
These are just some of the gaps that OI strives to close.

Where does Morphologic come in?

Morphologic enhances traditional MI and BI tools, with a focus on delivering high quality, people focused insight and intelligence to decision-makers. A truly no-code OI platform which sits at the heart of your business, allowing you to create, collate, interact with, and update the intelligence you need to make agile decisions with confidence. Morphologic helps you really understand the people aspect of your business - something which gets missed all too often. It uses your greatest asset, your people, to drive deeper, more meaningful and actionable insight. Check out our step by step guide to the Morphologic build process to find out how you can go from idea to insight in a matter of days or even hours.

View Guide

Interested to know more?

Contact our sales team today for a no-obligation discussion about how Morphologic can work for you.

Contact Sales