The Ladder of Business Intelligence (LOBI): a framework for enterprise IT planning and architecture

The LOBI Framework is a methodology that facilitates the creation of an Information Technology (IT) plan and the design of IT architecture for a business. The LOBI Framework derives the plan and the architecture on the basis of the business objectives through a detailed analysis of the people, process, and technology mix of a business. This paper shows how the LOBI framework forces alignment between the business strategy and the IT strategy through a step-wise methodology that inductively proceeds from vision, through mission and core processes, to IT initiatives. The LOBI Framework also allows business intelligence to be defined in an operational sense, and shows how the effectiveness of utilising business intelligence can be measured, and how it is possible to differentiate between effectiveness and efficiency as a measure of intelligence value. Finally, the LOBI Framework facilitates mapping all IT Technology used in a business to six levels of intelligence.