Larry Goodwin, president of The College of St. Scholastica writes, in Solving the "It's My Data' Mess, about the trials and tribulations of implementing a business intelligence platform for a small, private institution. The article is from University Business magazine. If it is reflective of the essays in the book linked-to below, then both are well worth a read for their perspective on the processes involved.

[P]utting the BI system into operation was not easy. The difficulty was not technological or quantitative; it was political: Who controls the fundamental data definitions? In the meetings of a large committee established to implement BI, it became obvious that people whose primary interests were tactical and departmental couldn’t agree on common definitions. Senior administration had to take hands-on control—our second lesson learned. ...

A BI system can be costly ($250,000 for us up front) and require significant staff training (intensive for key users for three to eight weeks; ongoing, more moderate, for a year). But the payback is generous and quick. Data reporting has increased ten-fold. Time spent retrieving information has been reduced 50 to 75 percent. Collections work that took a monthly half day now takes less than a minute. The controller saves over eight hours each semester on reconciling numbers. And so forth. Best of all, data is reliable and consistent, allowing for accurate and integrated planning, budgeting, and assessment.

It is excerpted from President to President: Views on Technology in Higher Education Volume II, published by Sungard Higher Ed and the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC). That entire publication can be downloaded as a PDF at no cost here.

Ohio University wanted to get started with analytics (business intelligence) but didn't have much money. This Campus Technology magazine case study explains how they did it and what they learned:

Also working to give input and feedback to Wykoff's team was a committee of various users. That committee, which has met weekly for a year and continues to meet and give input, includes representatives from budgeting, finance, the registrar, the bursar, and other academic personnel. As the group gains an understanding of just what BI solutions can do, Wykoff said, excitement is building. "There's starting to be a little line [of people] saying, "How can we get on the BI list and be next?'"

One lesson Wykoff offered as the project moves into its second year is this: Delivering the right data to end users through BI is an iterative process. "Once [users] see the data, they're going to ask a different set of questions [than the first time around], or realize some assumptions," she noted. That makes BI different from a more traditional software development project, in which user needs are researched, then a system is installed, modified, and left to run.