There is a lot of noise in the BI marketplace regarding ‘Self-serve BI’. And that is good. As a result, every business understands the value of self-serve BI and data democratization and most businesses are actively working to provide that value to the organization and to the business users by empowering users to make swift, confident decisions.
If your business is confused about the tools in the business intelligence market, you are not alone. There are lot of options in the market today, which is great for the enterprise and its users, but the confusion that this marketplace creates can be daunting when it comes to making a decision about which solution is right for your organization and your business users. If your business has a self-serve business intelligence initiative, the confusion can be even more discouraging. How do you choose a tool that will live up to the hype and your expectations?
Most of us have long since outgrown the school playground but let’s revisit the old neighborhood for a moment, shall we? Imagine that you are a small child and you want to explore all that the playground has to offer. You want to try the swings, the teeter-totter, the swinging bars, the slide – you want to try it all. It is the job of the teachers and parents to keep you safe and, to allow you access to only those parts of the playground that are age appropriate and suitable for your skills.
BI tools and mobility are not mutually exclusive! Most of today’s BI tools vendors claim to support Mobile BI. But when you actually look at the tools, you find that development, publishing, usage scenarios, usability, and effectiveness, fall far short of comprehensive mobility support.
Dashboards designed by most of the BI tools do not allow intuitive navigation or access on all types of devices and screen sizes.
Myth #2 – True Self-Serve BI Tools Will Compromise Data Governance
Today’s business intelligence market offers many options! But, never every business intelligence solution can help your self-serve initiative succeed. When an enterprise undertakes a business intelligence initiative or wishes to improve or upgrade its BI tools, it is easy to get lost in the hype and myth surrounding the market.
If your organization finds it difficult to sort through the buzz and choose the right BI tools, we are here to help.
Do self-serve BI tools support data governance, integral data security and organizational IT standards and policies? In some cases, the answer is ‘no’. But, that shouldn’t stop you from looking at self-serve BI tools. The question isn’t whether the integrity of data governance can be preserved when using self-serve BI tools. The question is really, ‘which vendor should I select in order to achieve true self-serve BI and data democracy without eroding data governance and security?’
Today’s business managers and owners are savvy enough to know that self-serve business intelligence is the way to go. Business users need data visualization, monitoring and analysis if they are going to help the organization to achieve the best results and compete in the market. You want to provide true data democracy in your organization and since most BI tools vendors are pitching the benefits of self-serve BI, one might assume that real self-serve BI tools are available from every vendor, but nothing could be further from the truth (so, buyer beware!)
When business intelligence vendors talk about democratizing data discovery, they can have very different interpretations about ‘democracy’. If a business intends to provide self-serve BI tools to its employees for daily use and data discovery, it must provide true data democratization. The business user cannot be limited to viewing static dashboards developed by dashboard developers with only the most basic drill down and filtering capabilities. Business users must be empowered by true data democratization and self-serve BI tools, which, in many cases, is the original intent of a BI solution implementation. Sadly, many businesses never achieve their original goals, but rather end up with ‘packaged dashboards’, because they are hamstrung by desktop-based data discovery BI tools that require design control and intervention by dashboard developers and limit business users to packaged views and tasks.
Handling large amounts of data for business analytics can be challenging. To defeat data overload and manage those mountains of data, you need smart aggregation and consolidation of relevant data encompassing appropriate contextual information over a relevant period.
New BI tools have made this job easier with deep dive technology that enables simple analytics and allows you to leverage sophisticated tools, in an easy-to-use environment so that you can not only report on your data but you can get to those hidden nuggets of data that will have the most impact on your organization.
Let me start with recent past or I would say past?Traditional business intelligence tools and corporate performance management solutions typically use an IO-based processing technique that makes the compilation and analysis of data a slow process. It limits processing and speed from hardware resources that use extensive IO to read and write to and from the disk. This challenge can be frustrating for users and for IT staff because it reduces productivity and can overwhelm systems during peak periods.
