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BI Award Questions and Answers

• What is Business Intelligence?
• What are the Business Intelligence://Data-Into-Action Awards?
• When is the nomination deadline?
• When will the winners be notified?
• Who is eligible for the award?
• What are the award criteria?
• How can nominations be submitted?

What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence strives to improve organizational decision-making by eliminating guesswork. It relies on leveraging data to optimize planning, while supporting quicker and better informed conclusions. By transforming data into information and information into knowledge, smart decision-making and informed action plans are initiated. Business Intelligence can help organizations optimize efficiency and improve performance.

What are the Business Intelligence://Data-Into-Action Awards?
The Business Intelligence://Data-into-Action award recognizes excellence in applying Business Intelligence to planning, problem-solving and process improvement in academic and business units throughout the University.

When is the nomination deadline?
Nominations for the 2008 awards will be accepted from January 31 to February 29.

When will the winners be notified?
Awards will be announced in April. Winners will be honored at an awards presentation event on April 15, 2008.

Who is eligible for an award?
All regular full or part-time staff members at U-M Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses, or in the Health System are eligible for nomination. Faculty members, students and temporary staff are not eligible for nomination, but are encouraged to submit nominations of qualifying individual staff members or teams.

What are the award criteria?
To nominate yourself, a team or an individual, please complete the online nomination form with no more than five pages of supporting information describing how the project of the nominee(s) uses Business Intelligence to meet one or more of the following criteria:

• Creativity or Innovation: Use of technology to solve problems, answer questions, and/or develop new products, tools, or solutions; creative applications of existing technology to solve operational challenges in new and different ways.


• Integration: Expanded application of technology solutions used by others at U-M, thereby increasing the impact and improving return on investment.


• Positive Business Impact: Improved decision-making, asset management, efficiency, communication, and/or performance. (Could even be a single example of a data-driven decision that resulted in a positive impact.)


• Customer Service: Improved customer service or customer relations as a result of using Business Intelligence tools, techniques, or processes.


• Quality: Improvements in service quality, work environment, or quality of work life or student life obtained as a result of a Business Intelligence effort.


• Risk or Effort: A Business Intelligence or data-driven project that took calculated risks and provided important information for future initiatives or projects, regardless of outcome.

How can nominations be submitted?
Nominations may be submitted by completing the nomination form and sending it as an email attachment to bi.inform@umich.edu.