Strategic Information and Business Intelligence (SIBI)

What is SIBI?

The Strategic Information and Business Intelligence (SIBI) program is an exciting step forward for the University. This major initiative will transform the rich data already available into meaningful institutional information. SIBI will provide essential support for the University to meet its strategic goals and provide a foundation to inform strategic decision making. Faculties, divisions and portfolios will be provided with a common framework for broad but standardised management and strategic performance reporting. They will have access to data that represents ‘one source of truth’ and will have greater access to dynamic user friendly reports with drill down capability that can be further interrogated.

Program development

The Planning and Information Office (PIO) is responsible for delivery of the SIBI program, working in close collaboration with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and in partnership with Research, Finance, Education, Human Resources and Campus Infrastructure and Services (CIS). The program has a three year development and implementation plan and will operate with an iterative, agile approach through a series of project cycles. These projects are prioritised and will be rolled out incrementally to allow for early and immediate benefits for faculties. A consultation process will be established to ensure user requirements are delivered for each project. The conceptional framework for SIBI is provided below.

Stakeholder Engagement

Engagement Strategy
The SIBI Engagement Strategy encompasses Communication, Business Process Improvement and Training. This strategy will ensure inclusion of key stakeholders and subject matter experts during each iteration of the program. A consultative approach will ensure the valuable input of each contributor, thereby minimising the risk of omitting vital information, retention of legacy systems, resistance to adopting new practices and adherence to governance structure. The engagement strategy focuses on visibility and transparency throughout the program delivery to ensure all relevant parties are fully informed and strategically aligned.

User Working Group
The SIBI User Working Group is a volunteer group that collaborates with the SIBI team in providing input and feedback on the design, ‘look and feel’, functionality, navigation and usability of the University’s BI Enterprise Portal and its report deliverables. This process will ensure that SIBI correctly identifies and meets user needs. Members of the group currently represent a broad cross section of the University including various faculties and business units such as; Education and Social Work, Pharmacy, Science, Business and Economics, Financial Services, HR, International Office, Graduate Studies Office, Sydney Student, ICT, PIO and Campus Infrastructure and Services. Please if you are interested in being involved, or would like to nominate someone in your team. There is further information about the User Working Group on the SIBI SharePoint site

Benefits of SIBI

SIBI will eliminate duplication and increase effectiveness and efficiency.

• Flexible and efficient quality processes will provide timely information and insightful analysis.
• Through functional ‘self service’ tools, identified staff will have direct access to key reports.
• Low-value tasks that consume a significant amount of professional time will be automated (for example; data validation, report creation, spreadsheet model maintenance and data sourcing).
• Implementation of enhanced university-wide analytical capabilities that have never been fully explored will be possible (for example; digital dashboards, analytical alerts and notifications, what-if analysis and predictive analytics).

SIBI will create a consistent, consolidated and cross-functional environment.

• SIBI will drive university-wide consistency of reports. Delivery of accurate and trusted information will, over time, enable more time to be spent on making decisions and planning.
• Strategic information will be consolidated across the University to provide key analysis and support strategic decision making.
• Standardisation of information (single source of the truth), measurement, reports and software will allow staff effort to be redirected to other essential tasks.
• Delivery of university-wide cross-functional and cross-portfolio reporting, monitoring and analysis (for example, the ability to quickly analyse student-to-staff ratios in scenarios).
• SIBI will provide new insights into cross-functional analytics that are currently very difficult to perform (for example, the relationship between undergraduate load and HDR outcomes).
• Strong alignment across hierarchies, measurement and KPIs will be introduced. Consolidated, prompt and timely reports will be provided to key staff, therefore reducing decision making cycles.

SIBI will provide access to position relevant information.

• Managers and leaders will have direct access to information and insight relevant to their role and responsibilities, the aim being to reduce time wasted in searching for appropriate information.
• The University will become more flexible in its decision making and will have an increased agility to respond to fluctuations in the higher education market and/or to changes in government requirements.
• Standardising on a single business intelligence system will provide workplace flexibility and allow key analytical employees to move seamlessly between roles with less training requirements.

Further Information

Regular updates on the program’s progress will be circulated to stakeholders, and details of each iterative project and schedule of deliverables will be available soon. For further enquiries please or .

If you would like to know more detail about SIBI and what’s involved in this institution-wide business intelligence program, you can to the SIBI SharePoint site, where you can view a range of documents including the SIBI Wiki.

The conceptual framework for SIBI: