This document discusses worst practices in business intelligence (BI) implementations. It identifies the top four worst practices as: 1) assuming BI tools can be used by average business users, 2) allowing Excel to become the default BI platform, 3) assuming a data warehouse will solve all information needs, and 4) selecting a BI tool without a specific business need in mind. The document provides details on each worst practice and recommends solutions to avoid BI failures and achieve success, such as using BI platforms and applications tailored for business users rather than complex BI tools.
Overview of major factors in big data, analytics and data science. Illustrates the growing changes from data capture and the way it is changing business beyond technology industries.
Overview of major factors in big data, analytics and data science. Illustrates the growing changes from data capture and the way it is changing business beyond technology industries.
Thinking Small: Bringing the Power of Big Data to the MassesFlutterbyBarb
Thinking Small: Bringing the Power of Big Data to the Masses via Adobe with the results of improved access to insights, better user experiences, and greater productivity in the enterprise.
Few decades ago, Managers relied on their instincts to take business decisions. They could afford to make mistakes and learn from it. Today, the scope for learning from mistakes is very minimal. Instincts should be backed by data to minimise mistakes.
Technological advancements, in addition to opening new channels of communication with customers, have also enabled organizations to collect vital information about their businesses with customers. But, have these organizations fully leveraged this data?
Today, Organizations make use of data for business decisions, but the data is not close enough to the customer to reap maximum benefit. In many cases, importance is not given to the granularity of data. The probability of “customer centric” decisions being right could be high, if the top management makes better use of the end user customer data (such as point of sale data, voice of customer, social media buzz etc.) to devise business strategies.
Understanding the Information Architecture, Data Management, and Analysis Cha...Cognizant
As the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes increasingly prevalent, organizations must build the enterprise information architecture required to gather, manage, and analyze vast troves of rich real-time data. We offer an IoT framework, use cases, and a maturity model that helps enable you to choose an adoption approach.
Operationalizing the Buzz: Big Data 2013VMware Tanzu
The 2013 EMA/9sight Big Data research makes a clear case for the maturation of Big Data as a critical approach for innovative companies. This year’s survey went beyond simple questions of strategy, adoption and use to explore why and how companies are utilizing Big Data. This year’s findings show an increased level of Big Data sophistication between 2012 and 2013 respondents. An improved understanding of the “domains of data” drives this increased sophistication and maturity. Highly developed use of
Process-mediated, Machine-generated and Human-sourced information is prevalent throughout this year’s study.
how i managed to Develop a Analytics story for services about 4 years back. Contains
Maturity Model, Business Potential, Services Structures Areas that analytics can be applied to
20150108 create time stamp
Nucleus Research found organizations can earn an incremental ROI of 241 percent by using Big Data capabilities to examine large and complex data sets. One driver of high returns was the ability to improve business processes and decisions by increasing the types of data that can be analyzed.
Who needs Big Data? What benefits can organisations realistically achieve with Big Data? What else required for success? What are the opportunities for players in this space? In this paper, Cartesian explores these questions surrounding Big Data.
www.cartesian.com
http://www.actian.com/
Actian’s strategy is to enable companies to develop Action Apps. Action Apps are lightweight
consumer-style applications that automate business actions triggered by real-time changes in data.
Action Apps will unleash the next level of business innovation and competitive advantage currently locked in the endless streams of data flowing through organizations and the industry. Action Apps are easy to build, require no training and provide value far beyond traditional business intelligence applications. Action Apps will be developed, managed
and shared on the world’s first Cloud Action PlatformTM from Actian.
It is Time For Action Apps
Over the past decade, most innovation in software has been in the consumer market.
Think about the way you use technology in your personal life today. We all enjoy small, light-weight, big-value apps on the smartphones and tablets we love. These consumer
apps help us do practical things like pay bills, book flights and taxis, and do fun things
like connect and share with friends. It’s never been more effective and fun.
Compare this to the experiences we have at work, where we are forced to use monolithic, hard-to-use, and harder-to-manage enterprise software. Actian’s mission is to enable users, developers, and Enterprise IT organizations to embrace and build consumer style apps to unleash a new level of enterprise productivity.
Whether it’s monitoring a particular company’s stock prices, keeping tabs on your competition’s
sales data, or watching your prospects’ credit ratings rise and fall, every Action App
is customized to meet the information needs of your particular job or workflow.
Action Apps are designed to constantly scan and probe a wide variety of disparate data sources, from highly structured corporate CRM and ERP systems to software-as-a-service offerings like salesforce.com, and even unpredicted unstructured twitter feeds, LinkedIn updates and Facebook posts. When the Action Apps data probes uncover important
information, they fire triggers which signal the appropriate business user and either
communicate, or cause an action to be taken as a result.
La base para optimizar y potenciar la toma de decisiones en cualqueir empresa es la información. Pero no la información en bruto, sino aquella de la que podemos obtener valor tras su análisis.
How to successfully implement Business Intelligence into your organisation.
A completely agnostic and independent view from a market leader in delivering technology transformation.
Details on how to build a strategy to successfully execute on and more importantly how to get the business to adopt Business Intelligence into their day to day role.
Essential tool kit for any organisation looking to invest in Business Intelligence.
Thinking Small: Bringing the Power of Big Data to the MassesFlutterbyBarb
Thinking Small: Bringing the Power of Big Data to the Masses via Adobe with the results of improved access to insights, better user experiences, and greater productivity in the enterprise.
Few decades ago, Managers relied on their instincts to take business decisions. They could afford to make mistakes and learn from it. Today, the scope for learning from mistakes is very minimal. Instincts should be backed by data to minimise mistakes.
Technological advancements, in addition to opening new channels of communication with customers, have also enabled organizations to collect vital information about their businesses with customers. But, have these organizations fully leveraged this data?
Today, Organizations make use of data for business decisions, but the data is not close enough to the customer to reap maximum benefit. In many cases, importance is not given to the granularity of data. The probability of “customer centric” decisions being right could be high, if the top management makes better use of the end user customer data (such as point of sale data, voice of customer, social media buzz etc.) to devise business strategies.
Understanding the Information Architecture, Data Management, and Analysis Cha...Cognizant
As the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes increasingly prevalent, organizations must build the enterprise information architecture required to gather, manage, and analyze vast troves of rich real-time data. We offer an IoT framework, use cases, and a maturity model that helps enable you to choose an adoption approach.
Operationalizing the Buzz: Big Data 2013VMware Tanzu
The 2013 EMA/9sight Big Data research makes a clear case for the maturation of Big Data as a critical approach for innovative companies. This year’s survey went beyond simple questions of strategy, adoption and use to explore why and how companies are utilizing Big Data. This year’s findings show an increased level of Big Data sophistication between 2012 and 2013 respondents. An improved understanding of the “domains of data” drives this increased sophistication and maturity. Highly developed use of
Process-mediated, Machine-generated and Human-sourced information is prevalent throughout this year’s study.
how i managed to Develop a Analytics story for services about 4 years back. Contains
Maturity Model, Business Potential, Services Structures Areas that analytics can be applied to
20150108 create time stamp
Nucleus Research found organizations can earn an incremental ROI of 241 percent by using Big Data capabilities to examine large and complex data sets. One driver of high returns was the ability to improve business processes and decisions by increasing the types of data that can be analyzed.
Who needs Big Data? What benefits can organisations realistically achieve with Big Data? What else required for success? What are the opportunities for players in this space? In this paper, Cartesian explores these questions surrounding Big Data.
www.cartesian.com
http://www.actian.com/
Actian’s strategy is to enable companies to develop Action Apps. Action Apps are lightweight
consumer-style applications that automate business actions triggered by real-time changes in data.
Action Apps will unleash the next level of business innovation and competitive advantage currently locked in the endless streams of data flowing through organizations and the industry. Action Apps are easy to build, require no training and provide value far beyond traditional business intelligence applications. Action Apps will be developed, managed
and shared on the world’s first Cloud Action PlatformTM from Actian.
It is Time For Action Apps
Over the past decade, most innovation in software has been in the consumer market.
Think about the way you use technology in your personal life today. We all enjoy small, light-weight, big-value apps on the smartphones and tablets we love. These consumer
apps help us do practical things like pay bills, book flights and taxis, and do fun things
like connect and share with friends. It’s never been more effective and fun.
Compare this to the experiences we have at work, where we are forced to use monolithic, hard-to-use, and harder-to-manage enterprise software. Actian’s mission is to enable users, developers, and Enterprise IT organizations to embrace and build consumer style apps to unleash a new level of enterprise productivity.
Whether it’s monitoring a particular company’s stock prices, keeping tabs on your competition’s
sales data, or watching your prospects’ credit ratings rise and fall, every Action App
is customized to meet the information needs of your particular job or workflow.
Action Apps are designed to constantly scan and probe a wide variety of disparate data sources, from highly structured corporate CRM and ERP systems to software-as-a-service offerings like salesforce.com, and even unpredicted unstructured twitter feeds, LinkedIn updates and Facebook posts. When the Action Apps data probes uncover important
information, they fire triggers which signal the appropriate business user and either
communicate, or cause an action to be taken as a result.
La base para optimizar y potenciar la toma de decisiones en cualqueir empresa es la información. Pero no la información en bruto, sino aquella de la que podemos obtener valor tras su análisis.
How to successfully implement Business Intelligence into your organisation.
A completely agnostic and independent view from a market leader in delivering technology transformation.
Details on how to build a strategy to successfully execute on and more importantly how to get the business to adopt Business Intelligence into their day to day role.
Essential tool kit for any organisation looking to invest in Business Intelligence.
Data mashup means in the BI space and makes the business case from both the business-side and the IT-side for enabling this ultimate level of self-service – a unique capability of InetSoft's BI solutions. For more details visit: https://www.inetsoft.com/evaluate/whitepapers/
A Wall Street Journal article reveals "A lot of valuable information is wasted in companies because employees don't describe or understand information in the same way across the organization. ... words such as 'profit,' 'overhead' and 'attrition' can mean different things in different departments, units and regions."
Join us for an educational webinar discussing how to prevent "metric confusion", accelerate deployment of enterprise information systems, and increase focus on analyzing and decision making instead of collecting, debating and reworking numbers.
The Forrester Wave of Self Service BI PlatformsMILL5
Forrester Wave: Self-Service Business Intelligence Platforms. Key Take-aways: IT can no longer support the majority of BI Requirements; Self-Service BI Features are Key to Empowering Data Consumers; Your Enterprise BI Platform May Already Provide Most of the Self-Service Features you are interested in.
Transformation of bi through ai and ml democratizationajaygajjelli
How do huge organizations work all over the world and yet the data is maintained efficiently? All business holders are aware of Business Intelligence as it identifies the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to organizations by creating understandable insights.
https://www.esspl.com/transformation-of-bi-through-ai-and-ml-
democratization-2/
The Present - the History of Business IntelligencePhocas Software
Learn the history of business intelligence in this three part series. In part one, we discussed how business intelligence software used to be (the past). In part two, we discuss business intelligence as it is in the present.
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Another great content/horrendous stock photo "presentation" from IT Business Edge about Big Data. (http://www.itbusinessedge.com/slideshows/big-data-eight-facts-and-eight-fictions.html)
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024
Worst practices in Business Intelligence setup
1. Worst Practices in Business Intelligence
Why BI Applications Succeed Where BI Tools Fail
A White Paper
by Kevin R. Quinn
Vice President of Product Marketing
2. Kevin R. Quinn is vice president of product marketing for Information
Builders. Kevin has over 24 years experience designing and implementing
business intelligence and enterprise integration solutions. He has
written and published many articles and white papers on strategic
information architecture.
In his various roles at Information Builders, Kevin has helped companies
worldwide develop information deployment strategies that help them
accelerate decision-making and improve corporate performance. He
has worked with global companies to implement best practices for their
successful deployments
Kevin graduated from Queens College with a bachelor’s degree
in Computer Science.
Kevin R. Quinn
3. Turning Failure Into Success
Worst Practice #1: Assuming the Average Business User Has the Know-How or Time to Use BI Tools
Overlooking the True End User
Too Much for Too Few
It’s a Matter of Time
Usability Trumps Capabilities
BI Go-To Guys and Multiple Versions of the Truth
The Solution
Worst Practice #2: Allowing Excel to Become the Default BI Platform
Manual, Error-Prone Process
The Impact of Data Errors
The Creation of Spreadmarts
The Solution
Worst Practice #3: Assuming a Data Warehouse Will Solve All Information Access and Delivery
Requirements
Failing to Fully Assess the Need for a Data Warehouse
The Solution
Worst Practice #4: Selecting a BI Tool Without a Specific Business Need
The Solution
You Have the Antidote
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4. Business intelligence (BI) software emerged in response to the need for accurate and timely
information to support informed business decisions. With origins in COBOL-based, green-line
reports in the 70s and 80s, BI has evolved into a complex market comprised of tools and platforms.
Tools exist for report design, ad hoc query, and online analytical processing (OLAP), while BI
platforms combine these tools with databases, integration technology, and portals to deliver
sophisticated BI applications. Whereas COBOL required IT involvement and months to generate
a single report, today’s solutions are targeted toward business users and boast real-time reports.
Why is it then that the majority of organizations still feel that their information access and
reporting needs are unfulfilled?
BI software – tools, platforms, and applications alike – holds great potential for helping
organizations readily access the enterprise information needed to make informed business
decisions and, ultimately, achieve their business objectives. But, as with any technology, the
implementation, roll out, and usage practices play a critical role in the success of BI.
In tracking mediocre results, and even failure1
, in the implementation of BI software over the
years, many common threads, or“worst practices,”can be found. The top-four worst practices
for BI include:
■ Assuming the average business user has the know-how or the time to use BI tools
■ Allowing Excel to become the default BI“platform”
■ Assuming a data warehouse will solve all information access and delivery requirements
■ Selecting a BI tool without a specific business need
These worst practices set companies on the auspicious path of BI failure. They have been repeated
by some of the best run and smartest companies in the world. Typically, these worst practices are
the result of wanting to ride the latest technology wave without balancing the hype with practical
knowledge and experience.
Designed to help organizations learn from the mistakes of others, this paper provides insight into
the top-four worst practices for BI. It also provides guidance on how to avoid and/or overcome
worst practices in order to tap into the true power of BI. By reading this paper, you will have a
solid understanding of how to avoid BI failure and achieve success with your BI initiatives.
1 Information Builders
Turning Failure Into Success
1 Failure is defined as a considerable expense with little or no return on investment.
5. 2 Worst Practices in Business Intelligence
BI tools – report design, ad hoc query, and OLAP tools – provide a valuable service and play a
critical role in a company’s overall BI strategy. They are not, however, what business users need.
Business users need readily available, actionable information that supports educated decision-
making. While BI tools offer the ability to uncover information, they are simply too complex for
the majority of business users.
Unfortunately, the end-user market is flooded with misguided hype from the vendor community,
indicating that,“BI tools are for everyone.”Today’s BI tools are typically targeted at business users
because they no longer require specific programming or database knowledge and primarily use
graphical, drag-and-drop interfaces to allow businesspeople to compose questions and retrieve
formatted results from databases. Even with these advances, however, they are still too complex
for the average end user to adopt as a part of their day-to-day routine.
Furthermore, few business users are involved in the decision process when it comes to BI. Because
of this, their need for simplicity is neglected and BI tools are forced on them from the IT developers
and business unit power users – a sure recipe for failure.
Overlooking the True End User
Often, the first (not to mention the most damaging) mistake that organizations make when
assessing BI solutions is neglecting to include business users on the selection committee. This
seems counterintuitive because business users will be the predominant users of the solution, but it
happens all the time.
More often than not, it is the participants in the tool selection committee that are at the source of
BI failure. If the assumption is that business users need a BI tool, then the committee is typically
made up of IT developers and other advanced users who understand how to use them. Individuals
of this skill set tend to look for tools with extensive features and advanced functionality with little
regard for their overall usability. In other words, the selection committee only represents the needs
of a small percentage of the business user population.
When business users are excluded from the solution selection process, their need for simplicity is
completely overlooked. The eventual decision of the committee represents the needs of only the
advanced users. And of the tools purchased for the entire user population, 90 percent or more
often end up as“shelfware.”
Additionally, the advanced users who can make sense of the tools often find themselves spending
hours creating a single report. Very few people have hours to spend every time they need a piece
of information, let alone to handle information requests from their non-technical colleagues.
Worst Practice #1: Assuming the Average Business User
Has the Know-How or the Time to Use BI Tools
6. Information Builders3
Too Much for Too Few
BI report design, ad hoc query, and OLAP analysis tools have hundreds, if not thousands, of features.
Although the user interface is often simple, complexity is introduced from the data side. Even a
simple data warehouse has hundreds of columns of data, and it’s not uncommon for more
complex systems to have thousands of columns. When an end user is faced with a blank canvas,
thousands of columns of data, and hundreds of accessible features, complexity is automatic.
“Where do I begin?”is often the first question, shortly followed by“I don't have time for this,”
or“I give up.”
The user skill pyramid is a widely discussed and generally agreed upon description of the end
users in most organizations. The simple version of the pyramid shown below demonstrates that
90 percent of the users within most organizations fit into the class of users known as non-technical
business users, which means that only 10 percent of users are advanced enough to use a BI tool.
Figure 1: It is generally recognized that 90 percent of the information workers in most organizations
can be categorized as non-technical business users.
What may not be obvious from the pyramid is that most executives and managers, often
the primary strategic decision-makers, are in the lower portion of the pyramid – that is the
non-technical users.
It’s a Matter of Time
In some instances executives and managers are technical enough to use a BI tool, but they don’t
have the time to work with a BI tool and navigate a data warehouse to produce the information
they need. Most people need a faster, easier way to get the information they need than that
provided by a BI tool.
7. Usability Trumps Capabilities
How is it that so many companies evaluate, purchase, and deploy BI tools for more than the
advanced users at the top of the pyramid? There are several reasons. As mentioned earlier, the true
end user is typically excluded from the selection committee and BI tools vendors make overzealous
claims of“it is so easy that anyone can use it; and everyone should!”Additionally, IT managers are
overburdened with requests for information, which feeds their desire for relief and makes them
vulnerable to the BI-tools-for-everyone approach.
In one situation, a project leader stated that her organization was in the process of deploying a
BI tool and all information requests would be ad hoc. When asked if they really believe this is
what their users need, the answer is typically a resounding,“Yes.”Followed by, "that was our
interpretation of what they wanted.”The challenge in this situation is that the project leader is
making a decision based on a desired end result, with little or no consideration of the process
required to produce the result or whether or not the users will embrace this process.
Needless to say these projects never get off the ground. The lion’s share of the users never use the
tools because they are too complex. They continue to ask IT or other more proficient end users for
information. Of course the information they need comes to them at a snails pace.
Ralph Kimball, an expert on data warehousing, explains this very clearly in his book, The Data
Warehouse Toolkit; 2nd Edition. He states,“Ad hoc query tools, as powerful as they are, can be
understood and used effectively only by a small percentage of the potential data warehouse
business user population.”
BI Go-To Guys and Multiple Versions of the Truth
In some cases, moderately successful deployments of BI tools are found in individual departments.
Usually that means that each department has identified and relies on a handful of advanced users
who become the tool experts, or the“BI go-to guys.”These users employ the BI tool on the behalf of
others, and create and distribute information for their department. In these cases, another issue is
brought to the surface – the inconsistency of the answers generated by more than one advanced
user, also known as multiple versions of the truth.
Multiple versions of the truth result when two or more people apply different query methods and
functions, and arrive at different conclusions. The challenge is that it’s difficult to know which, if any,
conclusion is correct.
The tool-based efforts of advanced BI users do not go through the same rigorous quality testing of
an IT department. Their work within a tool is typically not auditable. When this occurs, the validity of
the information system, the BI tool, and the data warehouse are all brought into question.
Worst Practices in Business Intelligence4
8. Valid or not, many companies have more confidence in operational reports generated, and tested
by IT professionals. Many become skeptical of pure ad hoc information created with a BI tool
because of the potential for variations and inconsistencies.
The Solution
Organizations need BI solutions that are easy to use for the entire user population, especially
those in the bottom portion of the usability pyramid. In addition, they need a solution that
mitigates multiple versions of the truth by providing access to a common source of enterprise
information and standardized report generation methods. A BI platform is the answer to all of
these requirements.
A BI platform leverages BI tools along with other technologies, including databases, data
integration, and portals to provide an end-to-end solution for a defined business problem or
set of business problems that can be termed a BI application. While BI platforms are implemented
by IT professionals, their end result, the BI application, is designed for business users.
Organizations have been led to believe that BI platforms are too complex for their needs. This
couldn’t be further from the truth. When you consider the data integration, warehousing, and
end-user training costs associated with BI tools, a BI application built on a BI platform has about
the same time to market as a BI tool. And end users embrace easy-to-use BI applications as part
of their day-to-day routine, which is arguably the most critical success factor of any application.
This is why BI platforms have far greater success than BI tools.
The fact is that most non-technical business users can and will access information through BI
applications, which are much simpler to use than BI tools. BI applications leverage reporting
technology, Web browsers, and e-mail to make information more accessible to these business users
in a comfortable, easy-to-use environment.
For example, today’s parameter-driven BI applications provide users a simple Web interface to
navigate to the report they want, much the same way they would find an item on eBay or a book
on Amazon. BI applications allow users to easily customize the report by selecting options from
pull-down menus the same way they would fill in their address and select their home state or a
shipping option from a drop-down list.
Information Builders’WebFOCUS, a business intelligence platform, is specifically designed to allow
developers to create exactly these types of applications, as illustrated in Figure 2.
Ralph Kimball also says,“The majority of the user base likely will access the data via pre-built
parameter-driven analytic applications. Approximately 90 to 95 percent of the potential users will
be served by these canned applications that are essentially finished templates that do not require
users to construct relational queries directly.”
5 Information Builders
9. Figure 2: A WebFOCUS BI application.
Information Builders uses a“guided ad hoc”approach as the foundation of our business intelligence
applications. This approach combines sophisticated functionality with ease of use to allow users to
create their own reports without requiring a tool and without being a technologist. It makes business
intelligence consumable by non-technical users by guiding them to the answers they need.
WebFOCUS applications are based on this guided ad hoc navigation. (See figure 2.) WebFOCUS
allows developers to create filter and column prompts, and report templates for business users,
who can easily customize the templates via the prompts. The result: a single, parameter-driven
report that offers thousands of potential outputs without requiring the end user to understand
how to use a BI tool.
WebFOCUS also provides the ability for each form to include a subscription/schedule option.
Leveraging the Web browser and subscription option, users can request to receive regular updates
to the information they create via e-mail. Overall this reduces complexity and the amount of time
spent creating and retrieving information, as well as improving the adoption of the application by
more non-technical business users.
Based on a combination of parameters, WebFOCUS’flexible reporting environment ensures that
developers are never overburdened with new report requests. Additionally, developers can
organize reports and prompting forms in a simple navigable portal, so business users receive
the simplicity, flexibility, and customization capabilities they need to embrace BI as part of their
day-to-day work routine.
Worst Practices in Business Intelligence6
10. Excel is arguably the most widely used BI tool in the world. While many consider it to be“just a
spreadsheet,”Excel houses many organizations’financial reports. In fact, Excel thrives in the absence
of true BI applications. At best, Excel is a BI tool. In addition to all of the problems associated with BI
tools discussed in the previous section, Excel introduces its own unique set
of problems.
The beauty of Excel is that it provides an extremely simple interface for commonly needed
functions like calculating, presenting, and displaying numerical data. Such functionality is so
commonly needed by business users that Excel, as a part of Microsoft Office, is installed on
nearly every single desktop and laptop, as well as many mobile devices, around the world. It is a
standard utility tool given to practically every information worker the day they start their first job.
Manual, Error-Prone Processes
Even though Excel provides much utility for business users, it wreaks havoc on the quality and
consistency of information. This is especially damaging in heavily regulated industries that must
adhere to strict compliance legislation. Consider the following, all-too-common scenario:
■ Business analysts develop Excel spreadsheets to assist with the day-to-day operational decisions
that their jobs demand
■ Pleased with the autonomy and sophisticated analysis that Excel supports, they share their
innovations with colleagues, who then modify the spreadsheet logic and manually tack on data
from their own information silos
■ Over time, rogue spreadsheets with data from multiple dubious spreadsheets are propagated
throughout the organization, and executives find themselves making decisions based on
untraceable, questionable data
In this scenario, the enterprise is at a loss to audit the information and numbers in the spreadsheets
(i.e. their“reports”) for themselves or for regulatory agencies. Meanwhile, the IT division has
complete, auditable, and backed-up operational system data that is untapped by the Excel
user community.
The Impact of Data Errors
Excel was never intended to be a BI tool. It is not Excel that is at fault, but rather its use as a BI tool.
Much of what is found in Excel spreadsheets is put there through a manual, error-prone, process,
which should never be the case with BI. BI applications should only utilize data from reliable,
trustworthy sources.
One report said that as much as 7 percent of all data found in Excel spreadsheets is wrong. The
impact of this scenario has been brought to light recently in many widely publicized instances
where Excel errors have cost companies millions of dollars. In the last year the European
Worst Practice #2: Allowing Excel to Become the Default
BI Platform
7 Information Builders
11. Spreadsheet Risk Interest Group, a group that analyzes and quantifies the cost of spreadsheet errors
worldwide, reported various situations, including:
■ A public auditor’s office in Minneapolis mistakenly reported the percentage change in
unreserved fund balances; an analyst set up the formula for the column in the spreadsheet,
dividing the difference between 2003 and 2004 balances by the 2004 total, instead of the
2003 figure
■ A Housing and Urban Development (HUD) audit revealed that a local housing authority had
to pay over $200,000 to cover expenses incurred when the authority overpaid some landlords
due to a data-entry error
■ In Nevada, a 2006 municipal budget was developed from a copy of the city’s 2005 budgeting
spreadsheet; in late 2005, a problem was revealed causing a $5 million deficit in the water and
sewer fund; while fixing the problem with the water and sewer budget, other errors were
uncovered and fixed
■ A well-known medical and consumer imaging company had to amend its third-quarter loss
by $9 million, announcing that the adjustment was needed because too many zeros were
added to an employee’s accrued severance on a spreadsheet; the company’s CFO characterized
the situation as“an internal control deficiency”
The Creation of Spreadmarts
Another unique phenomenon created by Excel is what is called“spreadmarts.”When individual
users accumulate their own store of relied-upon data in their personal spreadsheets to a point
where their information becomes a critical data source, it becomes a spreadmart. A spreadmart is
an unregulated, non-secure datamart in the hands of a user who rarely backs up his or her data
and may leave his or her job on a moment’s notice. This single user isn’t a problem so much as
the accumulation of hundreds of users with unregulated datamarts.
Excel – or, more aptly put, the spreadmarts created with Excel – is often considered an IT depart-
ment’s worst nightmare. This is because whenever a senior-level executive comes to understand
the dangers of spreadmarts, it becomes the IT department’s job to come in and make sense of the
data and the environment, and to somehow regulate, automate, and maintain the chaos. Hence, in
IT departments many have debated whether Excel is a productivity tool or an anti-productivity tool.
The Solution
Stopping business analysts from using Excel is like preventing water from flowing downhill. It’s
not going to happen. What can be done, however, is minimizing the manual work done in Excel,
and preventing the accumulation of critical data in personal spreadsheets.
One way to do this is to turn Excel into a BI viewer, as opposed to a BI tool. If accurate,
preformatted, and precalculated data is fed into Excel applications, the user has little or no work to
do to get the results he or she needs. If this process is automated, then data can live in a regulated
and secure source, such as in the data warehouse or operational system, and only feed into Excel
upon request.
Worst Practices in Business Intelligence8
12. Information Builders’WebFOCUS offers two options that help significantly with this problem:
■ Automatic generation of reports in Excel format
■ Automatic update (or refresh) of Excel spreadsheets and applications with accurate, regulated
data from any connected data source
Both of these options limit the amount of manual work performed in Excel, decrease data errors,
and reduce the accumulation of personal spreadmarts. Not to mention that these options present
the added benefit of improving analyst productivity.
Figures 3 and 4 show how WebFOCUS provides the ability for any report to be generated (upon
user request) as an Excel spreadsheet. Figure 3 shows the form through which the user identifies
the report parameters and then requests the report to be generated in Excel. Figure 4 shows the
Excel report that results from the request.
Figure 3: The Excel output option from within a WebFOCUS BI application.
Figure 4: The Excel output generated by a WebFOCUS BI application.
9 Information Builders
13. One key differentiator that may not be obvious in the Figure 2 and 3 screenshots is that
WebFOCUS automatically translates calculations and subtotals in the report into Excel calculations
and summations. This critical function is absent in most other BI tools. When it is absent from the
tool, the user is forced to create calculations and summations manually, which re-introduces the
potential for errors. Instead, with WebFOCUS, the user can simply use the spreadsheet as is,
reducing time, effort, and errors.
Some have argued that Excel applications are so much more than just reports. They are places
where analysts can plan budgets and try out financial scenarios. Information Builders is keenly
aware of Excel's value proposition across so many different industries and for so many types of
business challenges. With this in mind, we have designed WebFOCUS to work with Excel, not to
eliminate its use. The value-add that WebFOCUS brings to the table is the elimination of error-prone
data entry processes and silos of individual datamarts, both of which put organizations
at risk of violating the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other regulations around data accuracy
and availability.
WebFOCUS does not eliminate Excel from your business users work life, rather it allows Excel
worksheets to be directly updated/or refreshed with up-to-date data directly from the source
application or database. Simply put, WebFOCUS makes Excel more secure and less error prone,
while still allowing users to work in their preferred environment.
Worst Practices in Business Intelligence10
14. This particular worst practice is complex. Data warehouses are a very important part of information
technology and, in particular, are a critical component of many analytical systems. So it is not the
data warehouse that is the problem. Rather the worst practice arises when a data warehouse is
viewed as the solution to all information problems or when it is expected that the availability of
the data warehouse will drive business users to information.
The truth is that not all BI applications require a data warehouse. Many BI applications are better
served with integration and portal technology that allows data to reside where it currently exists
and pulls it on an as-needed basis. Unfortunately, many organizations fail to assess whether or not a
data warehouse is the right solution to their challenge before starting down the warehouse path.
Failing to Fully Assess the Need for a Data Warehouse
So often companies begin a data warehouse project before they have a BI solution, or even before
an information need has been identified, only to find that they have incurred another expense and
have not solved a single problem. When either of these scenarios occurs, companies immediately
raise their cost of doing business.
Organizations often rush into the creation of data warehouses for reasons that are not entirely
valid, such as:
■ My business intelligence solution required it and not because it made sense for the
business problem
■ I needed to get data from more than one application, so a data warehouse was necessary
■ I needed a data warehouse because all information systems require it
Building a data warehouse for these reasons may automatically reduce the timeliness of your data
and increase the expense of your overall system. According to leading industry analysts, integration
and movement of data (data warehousing) can consume as much as 80 percent of the cost of a BI
implementation. Simply put, data warehouses should not be implemented without a clear
understanding of the business challenge they will support, and decisions around data warehouses
should be well researched.
The Solution
There are many ways to integrate data from your databases and applications that allow you to
place important, timely information in a business user’s hands at the point of business. Each
business challenge and/or process should be analyzed to understand whether a data warehouse
or another type of information access tool presents the best solution.
The key thing to remember here is to identify the best information integration and access method
for your needs first, and not to assume that a data warehouse is the solution before assessing
all options.
Worst Practice #3: Assuming a Data Warehouse Will Solve
All Information Access and Delivery Requirements
11 Information Builders
15. Information Builders’WebFOCUS utilizes over seven ways to integrate and access data to solve a
specific business problem. The following list reviews four prominent methods that are lower in
cost and give business users more timely access to information than a data warehouse.
■ Operational data access, which provides reporting directly from operational applications or a
copy of operational data
■ Trickle-feed or near real-time data warehouses, which take transactional data and place it into
a data warehouse at transaction time
■ Transactional alerts, which generate information and deliver it directly to a user based on
time-sensitive transactional information
■ Web services reporting, which combines information available as Web services from internal
and external sources to create reports that are delivered directly to business users
Identify the Best Solution for Your Needs
Organizations need to carefully assess their unique challenge and all of the available solutions to
identify the best way to resolve their problem. Consider the following examples where a typical,
staged data warehouse was not necessary for a business intelligence solution.
Example A: Maintenance issues regarding airline seats on a major airline were going unattended
for extended periods of time, preventing the airline from selling those seats on flights and reducing
revenue and profitability. The information the airline needed to expedite the repair of the seats was
distributed across three different applications, and it was needed in real-time as the plane was on
the ground during its maintenance check.
At first glance, it may seem that integrating the data from the three different applications into a
staged data warehouse might present a solution. However, a complex, timely, and expensive data
warehouse initiative was not necessary. In this particular case, Information Builders identified that
a single report was all that was needed to solve the problem. WebFOCUS was used to build a
report that combined data from the plane maintenance system, which held information about seat
and other problems on the plane; the parts inventory system that held information on where the
necessary parts existed to fix the problem (i.e., in which parts warehouse and at which airport); and,
finally, the plane routing system, which held information on where all planes were next scheduled
to be so that the part could be made available for maintenance at the soonest possible moment.
Based on this one report, the airline now has better ability to attend to maintenance problems in
a more timely fashion and, thus, has been able to increase seat sales and improve profitability.
Example B: A telecom company had customer information stored in over five separate systems. At
any point when a customer interacted with the company, it was possible that that information was
sent to and stored in any one of these five systems. The telecom had a staged data warehouse that
accumulated data nightly from these five sources. However, it became apparent that the data in
the data warehouse was often out of date, which caused major customer service problems. Phone
calls needed to be transferred from one customer support representative to another – each having
Worst Practices in Business Intelligence12
16. access and expertise in only one of the five distinct operational systems. This practice delayed call
resolutions, negatively affected customer satisfaction, and resulted in higher support costs.
In this case, a data warehouse already existed, but for one reason or another it clearly wasn‘t serving
its intended purpose. To resolve the situation, WebFOCUS integration technology was
used to create a trickle-feed data warehouse. In the solution, WebFOCUS monitoring technology
listened for transactions going into all five operational systems and then enriched the data and
added it to the new real-time data warehouse.
This solution gave a single customer support representative a complete view of the customer in
a WebFOCUS reporting application within five minutes of any customer interaction.
Identifying When Data Warehouses Make Sense
Again, it is not the data warehouse that is the problem; rather it is the reason for building it that
often presents the challenge. The challenge is to be able to identify when a data warehouse will
truly help solve a business challenge.
Many valid reasons exist for building a data warehouse, including:
■ When there is a critical need to reduce overhead on a transaction system or production
application in order to improve performance of that system and the resulting BI application that
will access the data warehouse
■ When BI tools require access to data, and you need to reduce the complexity of data to speed
the query creation process
■ When it is necessary to analyze data across older, historical time periods and that data is no
longer accessible in the operational applications
If you are endeavoring to build a BI system for your company, the key point to remember in relation
to this BI worst practice is that it’s a misjudgment to assume that a warehouse is required. Always
start by evaluating the information need and selecting the data integration option that
best fulfills your requirements. You may find that a data warehouse suits your needs, but more
importantly, you may not.
13 Information Builders
17. Worst Practices in Business Intelligence
Worst Practice #4: Selecting a BI Tool Without a Specific
Business Need
You might have noticed that the two business examples given in the previous section – the major
airline and the telecommunications company – both had finely defined problems and solutions
with clear business objectives. Their understanding of their problem helped them identify and
implement an effective BI solution. On the other hand, one of the most egregious of the four worst
practices in this paper is the purchase of BI software for“general purpose analysis.”In fact, the
largest expenses and the smallest ROI is a result of purchasing a solution for“general purpose”BI.
In other words, a company recognizes the need for business analysis and immediately plans a
project to evaluate and purchase a BI solution for their users.
Without a specific purpose, BI rarely has impact on business. The starting point for creating a BI
solution should be when you identify a project that will solve a specific problem through access
to information in a timely fashion and in the right context.“Solve a problem,”means that
information will accelerate a slow running process, eliminate a bottleneck, reduce the cost of
doing business, or even become a new revenue source.
When information requirements such as these are identified up front and used as the business
driver behind the BI implementation, the implementation of the BI system has a much greater
likelihood for success.
The Solution
The lesson here is that your motivation for pursuing and purchasing BI software, or building a data
warehouse for that matter, should never be general purpose. If you want success, understand the
business problem and know beforehand what can be expected if information is injected into
the process.
While this lesson‘s roots are less about technology than the others, Information Builders‘ solutions
allow you to think outside the box when designing a system. WebFOCUS is not just a tool for
accessing a data warehouse, but a software platform that allows you to get data from anywhere
at any latency and provide it at a specific point of business to solve a problem. That is where you
will receive clear and easily quantifiable benefits.
14
18. You Have the Antidote
While some of what has been mentioned in this paper may seem like common sense, you can
bet that someone in your organization will begin efforts that will put into effect at least one of
these worst practices. Who can blame them when industry trade journals, the vendors, and
technology consultants promote the latest technology and promise all sorts of benefits? It’s
easy to get caught up in the hype.
The good news is that you are well armed to identify and combat at least these four worst practices
before they take root and grow into a strangling vine. In addition to the solutions presented in this
paper, you can also use counterintuition to the worst practices to provide
you a clearer path to success. Consider the following.
■ Start your next project by identifying how timely information delivered in the right context
can accelerate a process, reduce costs, or improve productivity in a particular area. Do not
start the project for a general purpose!
■ Identify which data integration method will allow you to prepare the data for your application
in the most timely and least costly manner. You may find out that a data warehouse is
appropriate, or perhaps not. (If you have already chosen a tool it may limit your choices
in this area.)
■ Build a BI application that leverages Web-based, parameter-driven forms, personal end-user
scheduling for regular e-mail delivery, and alternate output options (e.g. HTML, Excel, PDF)
to give end users flexibility.
■ Include business users on the selection committee to ensure that you implement a solution
that will be embraced by all users. For most users, this means an easy-to-use BI application that
doesn’t require too much of their time. But don’t neglect the preferences of your technical
users either. BI tools, although complex, are a great way to provide technical business analysts
with a way to contribute new insight to an evolving BI application. Evaluate how many
technically savvy analysts you really have and build these tools into the final solution. Be sure that
their work can easily be shared with other less technical business users so everyone
can benefit.
These steps will deliver an end result with a clearly defined ROI. You will have identified your
business need upfront. And you will have laid the groundwork for wide user adoption by
including the true user in the selection process and implementing an easy-to-use BI application
that integrates with preferred desktop applications.
While these four steps can be followed regardless of your choice of BI platform, we strongly
believe Information Builders’WebFOCUS will give you the appropriate blend of integration
choices (more than seven options), application development capabilities (for parameter-based
reporting and scheduling), and the most flexible output options. All of this will allow you to
build a simple, flexible BI application that will result in wide user adoption, which will in turn
help the organization achieve its business goals.
15 Information Builders