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.
When you are considering a business intelligence tool, you may not think it is important to consider whether that solution has the capacity to provide cross-tab analysis. Even though cross-tab analysis has been around awhile, it is still very relevant and, when it is paired with other great business intelligence tools, it can be a powerful feature to provide data clarity and support confident business decisions. Business intelligence software with cross-tab analysis enables a 360° view of data and a BI reporting tool that offers insight into data in a way that other tools do not.
There are a lot of components to a comprehensive business intelligence solution. The process of integrating data from disparate sources, and using that data to analyze, clarify, find issues, identify opportunities and make decisions is one that is crucial to every organization, no matter how small or large but it can seem daunting. But, with the right BI reporting tool and dashboard software, your business can do great things and you can empower your business users and make them more productive.
If you are considering a Business Intelligence solution, you ought to give some consideration to the concept of Smart Data Visualization and review your prospective solution to determine its capabilities in that regard. Smart Data Visualization provides many benefits to the organization and to the business users, who will leverage the selected BI tools to gather, analyze, share and report on data. Smart Data Visualization goes beyond data display to suggest options for visualization and plotting for certain types of data, based on the nature, dimensions and trends inherent in the data. It allows users to perform advanced analytics, using sophisticated tools in an easy-to-use, drag and drop interface, with no advanced skill requirement for statistical analysis, algorithms or technical knowledge. Your users can go beyond data monitoring to ‘discover’ subtle and important factors that will identify issues and patterns, and help the organization capitalize on opportunities.
There is one thing I know about people and that is that they like things to be simple and easy. If your favorite shopping area is a mile from your house, you won’t drive an extra five miles to get to that great store on the outskirts of town. You might drop by if you happen to be in the neighborhood, but the business owner can’t count on your business on an ongoing basis.
If you take the time to invest in a business intelligence solution, you want one that you can use for a long time. Your users will become familiar with the tools and will depend on them to make decisions, product reports and analyze data. But, on the day you choose your BI tools, you have no way to know every requirement or need that will pop up after you implement the solution. So, how do you ensure longevity and provide a solution that will grow with your business users?
