Gordon Ramsay Business Intelligence: The Art of the Re-launch

One of the most popular television chefs in a sea of culinary broadcasting has to be Gordon Ramsay.  This “bleep”-heavy British gourmand has found success with two U.S. television series. 

Hell’s Kitchen takes executive chef wannabes and attempts to turn them into culinary leaders through a high-stress kitchen boot camp.  Kitchen Nightmares, on the other hand, takes existing businesses that are performing at a less than desirable level and attempts to transform them into successful, well-oiled engines.  Both shows are transformational, expletive-laden journeys through the “back of the house,” but it’s the re-launch that we see in every episode of Kitchen Nightmares that got me thinking about how to apply the Ramsay approach to Business Intelligence (BI). I know it seems like an odd analogy, but follow me here…

In the world of BI, one of our greatest measures of success is adoption.  Simply put, are users consuming what we’re putting out there for them?  Just like a restaurant, a BI organization can be serving up a fantastic product, but if people aren’t at the table, it isn’t going to succeed.

In reality, we can break down the Kitchen Nightmares template into a sort of checklist that we can easily apply in the BI world. 

Evaluation

In the first third of the episode, Ramsay comes to the restaurant as a patron.  He experiences the environment first hand, speaks to employees, and tastes the food.  His position as an informed, external expert gives him a unique opportunity to see both the pros and cons of the way the business is operating.  Similarly, the best way to evaluate your BI environment is to bring in a trusted partner—someone who has seen a lot and who understands the business. This person, however, should not be so close as to miss something.

In the TV show, Ramsay’s evaluation generally finds several opportunities for improvement, and he shares them openly and honestly with the owners.

Simplification

In the majority of cases, the restaurants that Ramsay visits are trying to do too much.  For example, the menu is cluttered with options, which might lead to too much inventory and excessive spoilage. Thinking of our world, we often have so many report folders and standard reports that a user doesn’t even know where to begin. (Think of sitting down at the table and opening a 12-page menu—especially when you are really hungry!)  In the back of the house, we have tight ETL windows and slow performance because we’re pulling over and retaining volumes of information. (Ramsay would think, Do we really need to keep all of that frozen ravioli?)

Ramsay invariably takes the menu and thins it down to a set of dishes that capitalize on the region’s ingredients or the restaurant’s general theme.  We can look at BI in the same way.  If we audit a specific area of the business, we can see what reports are being consumed and cross-reference them with organizational goals.  We might then be able to take our “menu” and narrow it down so that the first thing a user sees is a much cleaner and usable landing page.  We accomplish this goal by really understanding what a particular set of users needs and then creating a “reporting home page” that gives them useful information, not clutter.

Redesigning the Space

In the second part of the show, a team of interior designers comes to the restaurant and turns it from “drab to fab” over the course of a night.  Old, scratched, and dirty tables are replaced with clean and crisp linens; dingy light fixtures turn into new and beautiful pieces.  Environment is very important to a restaurant.  It is just as important to BI.  How easy is it for your users to get to the proverbial table?  Are there VPN problems, infrastructure bottlenecks, and multiple authentication providers?  Perhaps it’s time to take your reporting environment and make it available to your remote employees via SSL encryption.  This eliminates a common bottleneck and makes it much easier to access information from anywhere, anytime.

Re-launch

The best part of the episode, in my opinion, is the re-launch.  After all of these wonderful changes have been made, the restaurant is “re-opened” to the community.  The restaurant generally holds an event that generates a buzz.  Perhaps a local celebrity attends the party, or a contest is held to showcase the restaurant’s specialty.  If your BI environment has been around for a few years and the excitement has faded, perhaps it’s time to get out some balloons and invite people to experience it again, for the first time.  Re-launch the BI site with an event, show executive sponsorship, and let people know what’s there for them.

Following these four steps will breathe new life into your BI program and increase the strategic opportunities of the entire organization by putting the right information into the right hands at the right time.

Bon Appétit!

Chris Keaton

Senior Consultant – Business Intelligence

Was this article helpful? Let Chris know by emailing him at info_ITCBI@inergex.com.

All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind of this article is allowed without written consent by Inergex.