BI Tools and Augmented Analytics That Ensure User Adoption and ROI

Ensure ROI, TCO and User Adoption with the Right BI Tools

When a business sets out to implement BI tools or self-serve augmented analytics, it must consider the entire technology landscape of the business, the expectations of end-users, the cost of the solution, how easily it can be upgraded and integrated and, well…so much more!

 

‘To ensure user adoption and achieve the ROI and TCO the business deserves, take the time to do the work. Develop requirements, consider the features and functionality of a solution and compare those to your use cases and your user expectations.’

 

Management teams do not take kindly to poor Return on Investment (ROI ) or Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and if the business has had difficult projects in the past, the next time a software solution is presented for approval, senior managers will remember the challenges and failures of the past!

 

Still, when you are attempting to transition business users into Citizen Data Scientists, there is bound to be some pushback from users and that pushback, combined with senior management concerns can and WILL bring your project to its knees if you do not anticipate and address these concerns.

 

Here are some statistics that will help you to understand the issues faced by businesses in implementing BI tools and analytics:
  • The global BI adoption rate is 26%
  • On average, businesses use at least four different BI tools
  • 97% of the data gathered by businesses is not used
  • 74% of employees express dissatisfaction and are overwhelmed when working with business data

 

In order to assure successful deployment, user adoption, improved Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), the business should include detailed requirements in its solution selection. When choosing a BI tool and augmented analytics solution for your business, one of the most crucial concerns is the features and functionality of the prospective solution and how this solution will meet user and organizational needs. When planning for deployment of BI tools and augmented analytics, the business should take the time to work through a process, ensuring that it has considered what users need and want to ensure user adoption and the ease-of-use and features the solution will provide.
To Achieve User Adoption, ROI and TCO Goals, Select the RIGHT BI Tools and Augmented Analytics
It is important to remember that there are also specific features a business should consider, like embedded BI and easy-to-employ Integration APIs, that will assure user adoption and appropriate ROI and TCO. These considerations will affect how well the solution is received, whether users will adopt it and be satisfied with the selection, and how the investment will perform when considering total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) when compared to other possible uses of the same investment funding.

 

With this foundation of documented features, services, skills and capabilities, the business can implement, manage, upgrade and support Business Intelligence and Augmented Analytics capacity and growth within the organization.

 

‘When you are attempting to transition business users into Citizen Data Scientists, there is bound to be some pushback from users and that pushback, combined with senior management concerns can and WILL bring your project to its knees if you do not anticipate and address these concerns.’

 

To ensure user adoption and achieve the ROI and TCO the business deserves, take the time to do the work. Develop requirements, consider the features and functionality of a solution and compare those to your use cases and your user expectations. INVOLVE your users and middle managers in planning to understand how and when to deploy the tools and how to support your business users as you transition them into Citizen Data Scientists.

 

To find out more about how to ensure Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) results, and enable user adoption, read our free White Paper, ‘A Roadmap To ROI And User Adoption Of Augmented Analytics And BI.’ To find out more about our Augmented Analytics And BI ToolsContact Us. Keep pace with changing enterprise needs and support business agility. Let us help you realize your business goals and objectives with fact-based information, and flexible, scalable technology solutions that will support Citizen Data Scientist initiatives, and improved data literacy and data democratization.

 

Original Post : BI Tools and Augmented Analytics That Ensure User Adoption and ROI!

Predictive Analytics Supports Citizen Data Scientists!

Use Predictive Analytics for Fact-Based Decisions

Like every other business, your organization must plan for success. In order to do this, the team must have a dependable plan and be able to forecast results and create reasonable objectives, goals and competitive strategies. These plans and forecasts will support investment in technology, appropriate resources and hiring strategies, additional locations, products, services and marketing strategies, partnerships and other components of business management to ensure success.

Forecasting and planning cannot be based on opinions or guesswork. It must be based on historical data, facts and clear insight into trends and patterns in the market, the competition and customer buying behavior. To accomplish these goals, businesses are using predictive modeling and predictive analytics software and solutions to ensure dependable, confident decisions by leveraging data within and outside the walls of the organization and analyzing that data to predict outcomes in the future.

‘Every industry, business function and business users can benefit from predictive analytics.’

According to CIO publications, the predictive analytics market was estimated at $12.5 billion USD in 2022 and is expected to reach $38 billion USD by 2028.

Predictive Analytics is Beneficial for Every Industry and Business Function

Predictive analytics encompasses techniques like data mining, machine learning (ML) and predictive modeling techniques like time series forecasting, classification, association, correlation, clustering, hypothesis testing and descriptive statistics to analyze current and historical data and predict future events, results and business direction.

When a business selects predictive analytics tools that are suitable for business users and team members, it can leverage sophisticated algorithms and analytical techniques in an easy-to-use environment to enable every team member to contribute to the bottom line by allowing them to gain insight into data and use that insight to make confident, fact-based decisions.

With these tools, users can explore patterns in data and receive suggestions to help them gain insight on their own without dependence on IT or data scientists. The enterprise can provide the tools needed at every level of the organization with tools and data science for business users that are sophisticated in functionality and easy-to-use for users at every skill level.

The benefits of augmented analytics and self-serve predictive modeling include:

  • No complex algorithms or data manipulation
  • Auto-recommendations for algorithms to explore underlying data
  • No advanced data science skills required
  • Analyze, share, collaborate and optimize business potential
  • Business users can prototype and hypothesize without professional assistance
  • Recommend optimal actions to achieve specific goals

Every industry, business function and business users can benefit from predictive analytics. Here are some examples of the use of predictive modeling:

Retail – Predictive Analytics tools can be used to understand customer buying behavior and to suggest products and product bundling based on previous purchases, buying patterns, and demographics. This creates a more personalized and targeted shopping experience that is unique to each customer.

Supply Chain – The organization can forecast demand and manage the supply chain to optimize inventory using machine learning to predict customer demand, seasonality, product trends etc., to that the enterprise can mitigate stock shortages and avoid warehouse and inventory overstock.

Healthcare – By using historical data regarding specific diseases, conditions and treatment plans, providers can forecast treatment outcomes, limit risk and improve overall care, thereby reducing complications, readmission and provider resource, medication and hospital bed shortages.

Energy Infrastructure – Using predictive analytics allows these businesses to monitor and analyze data and performance and to detect patterns and trends that may indicate downtime, breakdowns and maintenance issues.

Financial Services, Banks and Loan Businesses – Predictive analytics provides support for credit risk and fraud mitigation and allows businesses to create scoring models for loan approval, etc. based on credit history, and other financial considerations. Predictive modeling allows the organization to identify transactions that are outside the norm, and alert the business and its customers of hacks, fraud, etc.

‘When a business selects predictive analytics tools that are suitable for business users and team members, it can leverage sophisticated algorithms and analytical techniques in an easy-to-use environment to enable every team member to contribute to the bottom line by allowing them to gain insight into data and use that insight to make confident, fact-based decisions.’

These are just some of the benefits and use cases your business can consider to decide on how best to implement predictive analytics and integrate the use of these tools into day-to-day use for business users to improve data-driven decisions and results.

To find out more about AI And Predictive AnalyticsContact Us. Keep pace with changing enterprise needs and support business agility. Let us help you realize your business goals and objectives with fact-based information, and flexible, scalable technology solutions that will support Citizen Data Scientist initiatives, and improved data literacy and data democratization.

Original Post : Predictive Analytics Supports Citizen Data Scientists!

Understand PMML (It’s Not That Hard)!

Incorporate PMML Integration Within Augmented Analytics to Easily Manage Predictive Models!

You may not be an analytics expert and you may find terms like PMML Integration somewhat daunting. But in reality, the concept is not complex, and the value is outstanding!

Augmented Analytics Must Provide Data Quality and Insight!

How Can I Ensure Data Quality and Gain Data Insight Using Augmented Analytics?

There are many business issues surrounding the use of data to make decisions. One such issue is the inability of an organization to gather and analyze data. These enterprises will typically focus on building a team of data scientists or business analysts to help with this task OR they might take on an augmented analytics initiative to provide access to data and analytics for their business users. This is where businesses will often face a second issue; namely that the analytics solution they choose is not designed to easily and quickly provide insight into data and to ensure data quality.

Data Democratization is Important. So Are the Right BI Tools!

Select the Right BI Tools and Succeed with Data Democratization!

Do you know what Data Democratization is? It’s simple, really. Data Democratization is the purposeful approach to cascading and integrating data into the daily workflow of business users to provide access to crucial information and the tools to analyze and understand that data and use it to make confident decisions. Instead of holding data in silos that are only accessible to IT, business analysts, data scientists and management, the enterprise recognizes the value of providing team members with the right information to do their job and contribute to the bottom line.

‘To succeed in data democratization, you need BI tools that provide data analytics access for all business users.’

Gartner predicts that, ‘75% of organizations will…deploy…multiple data hubs to drive mission-critical data and analytics sharing and governance.’ The key here is the ‘analytics sharing’ piece of the statement!

In order to fulfill the promise of this approach, your enterprise must employ business intelligence solutions that are easy-to-use and designed for business users, without advanced technical skills or advanced analytical skills. These tools allow your team members to engage in analytics and enjoy data democratization without the frustration of leveraging solutions designed for data scientists or IT staff.

Data Democratization Can Succeed with the Right BI Tools

Here are a few considerations to give you an idea of the kinds of things you will need to support your data democratization initiative. These factors are crucial to success, as they ensure that your users can and will adopt the BI tools you select to enjoy the new data access you have given them. Without these, you run the risk of spending the time and money to provide access and achieving poor return on investment (ROI) because of poor user adoption.

Embedded BI – By embedding business intelligence into the enterprise apps your users love, you can encourage data democratization and analytics in a single sign-on environment. Users do not have to sign in to multiple systems or move data around. They can start with the data within the ERP, HR, Finance or other system and perform analysis from within that system. Make it as easy as you can, and users will be happy!

Mobile BI – Don’t make your users sit at their desk in an office to use the BI tools. Make these tools accessible from the office and on the road, at home and in a client location or hotel. If you want your users to see the value in data democratization and you want to achieve your goals for this initiative, you must give your users the tools they need WHEN THEY NEED those tools.

Business Intelligence with Seamless User Access and Security – Data democratization does NOT mean throwing caution to the wind. Data must still be secured and accessible to users for the things they need to see, but not for the things they are not eligible to see and not in an environment where data security and privacy are at risk. To democratize your data, you must also ensure data governance, security and access standards and requirements are met.

Natural Language Processing – Make the augmented analytics and BI tools intuitive. Democratized data is no good if the users need an advanced degree to access the data. Natural Language Processing (NLP) allows your users to access data in a familiar way, with a Google-type search interface where they can ask questions using regular language and receive answers in a way that is easy to understand. If they can search, query and find information easily, they are more likely to a) use the system and b) understand the information they produce and make the right decisions.

Tools Designed Specifically for Business Users – The solution you select should be designed for business users, not for data scientists, business analysts, IT or statisticians. While you want the data democratization initiative to expand the skills and knowledge of your team, you do not want them to need advanced skills or training. Select a system that can be adopted and used within minutes – not months. Users want sophisticated functionality in an easy-to-use environment. That is important!

‘If you want your data democratization initiative to succeed, select tools that allow your team members to engage in analytics without the frustration of leveraging solutions designed for data scientists or IT staff.’

There are other considerations but, if you address the ones we have highlighted in this article, you will be well on your way to achieving your data democratization goals and ensuring that your users adopt the solution you select.

BI Tools should provide data analytics access for all business users. Simple, Self-Serve BI Tools can provide your business with the foundation to achieve your data democratization and user adoption goals. Let us help you achieve your vision and improve productivity and insight across the organization.

Original Post : Data Democratization Can Succeed with the Right BI Tools!

Smart Data Visualization Can Help You Understand Your Business!

We all know the saying, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ When it comes to business problems, opportunities and reporting, images and pictures can tell a story that dry data cannot match.

As your business moves toward metrics and measurable results and embraces analytics, it is likely to consider the implementation of augmented analytics across the enterprise.

‘The real beauty of Smart Data Visualization is that it is built within an Augmented Analytics environment that is designed for the average business user without advanced technical skills.’

Gartner predicted that, ‘augmented analytics will be a dominant driver of new purchases of analytics and BI as well as data science and machine learning platforms, and of embedded analytics.’ The decision to invest in augmented analytics and in data democratization means that your business users will need tools that are easy-to-use and provide sophisticated functionality. And, when it comes to the presentation of data, users will want new and improved ways to tell the story. Whether you are presenting in a staff meeting, sharing data and reports across teams or talking through a problem, smart data visualization is going to help you make a better decision, because it provides a clear picture of results and ensures that data is not misunderstood or misinterpreted.

In this article, we explore Smart Data Visualization and the concept of a ‘picture is worth a thousand words’ to discover how data visualization can make a real difference in your analytical environment and in supporting decisions.

Smart Data Visualization Tells the Story of Your Business

What is Smart Data Visualization?

Once a user has gathered the data they wish to analyze, Smart Data Visualization uses auto-suggestions and recommendations to help you choose the right way to visualize your data and produce reports based on data type, data volume the nature of the data, the patterns and the dimensions. Smart Data Visualization and Visual Analytics allows business users to analyze, share and present information without waiting for assistance from visualization experts or programmers. With augmented data discovery tools, business users can cut through that mountain of data to find those elusive nuggets of information that have the most impact on business results.

How Does Smart Data Visualization Work?

By combining cutting-edge technology and machine learning on the backend, with an intuitive user experience on the front end, business users can easily leverage sophisticated tools with suggestions and recommendations on how to personalize data displays to create meaningful views and collaboration. Machine learning provides guidance to determine the visualization technique that will be the best fit for the data business users want to analyze. It allows for better understanding of data, and identifies unusual patterns in data, and achieves the best output and results.

What Can My Business Do with Smart Data Visualization?

Visual Analytics tools enable users to identify relationships, patterns, trends and opportunities and to explore detailed data with simple drill down and drill through capabilities and make sense of data from all sources, with a guided approach that allows users to identify patterns and trends, and quickly complete analysis with clear results.

The real beauty of Smart Data Visualization is that it is built within an Augmented Analytics environment that is designed for the average business user without advanced technical skills. Users can leverage sophisticated features to get that one picture that will tell the story – all without involving IT or data scientists, so the day-to-day work of decision-making can go forward with confidence and accuracy.

‘Smart data visualization is going to help you make a better decision, because it provides a clear picture of results and ensures that data is not misunderstood or misinterpreted.’

Explore the advantages of Augmented Analytics Products And Services, and Smart Data Visualization. Let us help you implement a solution that will be suitable for your team members and your business results.

Original Post : Smart Data Visualization Tells the Story of Your Business!

Self-Serve BI and Augmented Analytics Has Many Rewards!

Address the Challenges and Enjoy the Benefits of Self-Serve BI Tools!

If you are a business manager, senior executive, IT professional or analytical professional, you are probably well aware of the emergence of business intelligence solutions, BI tools and augmented analytics for business users. In all likelihood, you have been hearing about these trends in annual conference and industry journals. If your business has not yet adopted such an initiative, it is likely to do so within the next year. But it might surprise you to know that, world renowned technology research firm, Gartner, predicts that ‘By 2022, augmented analytics will be ubiquitous, but only 10% of users will use it to its full potential.’ Given the focus and effort invested in business intelligence and augmented analytics, this prediction is disappointing, but understandable.

How Can I Get My Business Users to Adopt Augmented Analytics?

Drive User Adoption with Embedded BI and Single Sign-On Convenience!

All of your business users have a favorite software application – an app they value because it helps them do their job more easily, or helps them get crucial information. These are the applications they have learned and they are used to leveraging them on a day-to-day basis to perform tasks. When you introduce augmented analytics into your business environment, one of the most critical factors is whether you can expect user adoption. Finding and implementing the right augmented analytics solution is just the first step. If you can’t get your users to USE the application, your return on investment (ROI) will be poor and your total cost of ownership (TCO) will be high.

Help Your Clients AND Yourself with Analytics for Tally ERP!

If You Work with Numbers, You Need Analytics!

When you tell someone you work in a finance-related position, their eyes might glaze over. They picture you ‘counting beans’. Whether you work in inventory management, purchasing, accounting, enterprise finance or any other related position, your job can seem mysterious (and even boring) to many people. But, yours is the lifeblood of the organization.

Embedded BI Improves User Adoption of Enterprise Apps!

How Embedded BI Can Add Value and Improve ROI for Enterprise Apps!

No matter your reason for investing in that business application, the investment was meant to improve the business, to make team members more productive, to act as a repository for important business data and to somehow improve the bottom line. But, the effectiveness and success of a software solution depends on more than its features and functionality. Yes, one must consider its ease of use too, but that’s not the point of our discussion today.