The document discusses how business intelligence (BI) toolkits initially implemented to serve small, specific groups often struggle as needs grow and change over time. Piecemeal additions are made without restructuring the underlying architecture, leading to systems that become unwieldy, slow, and expensive to maintain. The document suggests using ARC, a pre-configured BI system, to avoid these issues and maintain high performance as requirements evolve.

1. It doesn't take much to figure that your needs will increase with time. So, what happens to your toolkit-based BI during this time?

2. BI is almost always initially bought for a department or specific group whose needs justify the initial investment. The BI Toolkit, the database, marts are all implemented to serve these needs. You began smart and compact. Then of course, you soon had to accommodate a 'few' additional needs.

3. Soon, it is time to accommodate a 'few' more. Needs change and evolve over time. With new requirements requiring new data sources to be connected to the existing BI. New groups and new users also come into the BI fold. Sadly, each of these, are piecemeal additions. The underlying architecture is ignored for many reasons. Restructuring the architecture is expensive. Organisations rarely have in-house restructuring capabilities. Some reports could be critical and hence need to be left untouched.

4. And soon, you are travelling in reverse. Soon the underlying piecemeal architecture becomes unwieldy, slow, unproductive (and prohibitively expensive to rebuild from scratch). Reports take hours/days to run – business loses time-sensitive market opportunities. Data inaccuracies and inconsistencies creep in – business loses faith in the numbers reported. Impossible to drill down or perform analysis on the data – business cannot understand or investigate issues. Database/warehouse size becomes too big to handle; loaded with redundant data. Large IT team needed to maintain the system. At high support and maintenance costs.

5. But what if you were on ARC?

6. You would be on the highway. Everything you need today and in the future is already available. When your BI requirements evolve, you start using more of the capabilities of the system. Or configure changes to accommodate new needs. There's no tedious build process involved. As more users and data come into the fold, the underlying architecture and processing is not disrupted; remains at peak performance. Data quality is maintained at the highest standards. You see more users, usage and real value from BI – because now you have a decision support system you can depend on. You would be putting the time on your hands to better use, like hitting the highway.