So, what happens when your business intelligence team does not look the way I just described? That is where partners and IBM consultants come in. Within the consulting community, we all aspire to be the kind of resource that I have just described. The reality is that very few organizations have more than one or two people who are able to understand the business and the technology. Thus, enter consultants.

There are a few reasons why you would want to consider partnering with IBM or a consulting firm. The first is for very focused projects. Perhaps you are interested in rolling out a new executive dashboard using IBM Cognos Workspace (formerly IBM Cognos Business Insight). Since the technology is so new, you would have to send a team of your internal users for training, just to give them a basic understanding. Alternatively, you could bring in a group of consultants to create the new dashboard and provide your internal team with hands-on training...