When your business begins the process of choosing or changing business intelligence tools and business intelligence services, it is easy to get confused! There are many choices in the market and not all of them are created equal. A business intelligence company offering solutions, features and functionality for advanced analytics must be suitable for your requirements or your initiative will not succeed.
When you are looking for a BI solution, do not ignore the trend toward data democratization and data literacy among your team members. To create the greatest assets to your company and improve team member value, you want to provide access to critical data and a simple way to perform advanced analytics so that users will adopt BI tools and you can create a social BI environment with improved data popularity and power users who will share knowledge and encourage the use of data and fact-driven decision-making.
I recently attended a business intelligence conference and I spoke with a small business owner who attended the conference in hopes of finding out how to leverage business intelligence to sustain growth and address competition while juggling other responsibilities and managing a small business budget.
In spite of the fact that trade publications and business conferences have been talking about business intelligence and BI software for years, there are still some business executives and business owners that do not understand how business intelligence tools can help the organization achieve its goals and stay ahead of the competition.
A business might wonder how to justify the implementation and cost of business intelligence tools when, in fact, it is more difficult to justify the decision NOT to implement a BI solution. A BI solution can provide targeted, concise information with which the business and business users can make fact-based decisions, and it can provide insight into trends and patterns that will help to dictate new product and service decisions, pricing decisions, staffing and training decisions and more.
BI dashboard is no longer the sole domain of a business intelligence analyst or data scientist. When a business implements a mobile, self-serve BI tool, it ensures that its business users and team members will have access to critical analytical tools in the office and on the road.
Business intelligence and analytics has changed drastically over the past five years. Data analysis for business is more democratic today and that is good for the organization. By extending access throughout the organization, the enterprise can provide a solid foundation for confident decision-making. Business users can have access to sophisticated business intelligence software and use business analytical tools without the advanced training of a data scientist, an analyst or an IT professional.
The key to analytics today is to provide the tools to every user on the team and allow them to leverage those tools in whatever way is meaningful to their role and will help them support the goals of the organization. Business users need a BI tool that can provide business intelligence reporting and let them visualize data in a way that makes sense for the data and purpose they are considering.
An enterprise that employs restrictive business intelligence tools is losing competitive advantage and crucial business opportunities every day. To get the most out of business intelligence software, an organization needs a self-serve business intelligence dashboard that will allow business users to access data integrated from multiple sources and analyze that data with ease, using business intelligence reporting that incorporates sophisticated features in a simple, interactive environment.
I have a few pet peeves but every one of my team members knows ONE of these pet peeves all too well. I HATE spending time and resources on endless report customization and data sharing that never quite makes it to every team member. I hate it when everyone isn’t on the same page! But, I don’t have the time to run to every office and check on what team members are using to make decisions.
