Why Should My Business Adopt Embedded BI and Analytics?
There are many reasons to consider adding embedded BI to your enterprise technology landscape. When you are making a critical business decision, one of the factors you probably include is how your competitors and other businesses are addressing the problems you are trying to solve. When making a decision about Embedded BI consider these survey results. Businesses that are currently using embedded BI within their enterprise, report the following:
Embedded BI Can Provide Numerous Benefits to the Team and the Enterprise!
When a business invests in technology, either to buy a best-of-breed solution or to develop their own enterprise apps, there is significant expense. If you are developing your own solution, you are using in-house resources or engaging IT consultants. If you are purchasing solutions off the shelf, you may or may not need customization but, in any case, the solution will cost you quite a bit of money and it will take more funding to support and maintain and integrate that solution.
Can Embedded BI Make My Software Business More Competitive?
If your business creates software products and applications, you know how competitive the market can be, and you are always looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage. In this article, we discuss the competitive advantages of adding analytics to your product offerings.
‘If you embed analytics within your product or application, you can provide partners, suppliers, vendors and customers with a tool that supports fact-based decisions and metrics within a familiar application.’
Gartner states that embedded BI provides benefits to users when, ‘data analysis occurs within a user’s natural workflow, without the need to toggle to another application.’ When your users enjoy this benefit, your application or product is likely to attract more clients and retain those clients by providing productivity and avoiding user frustration.
For example, if you have created a financial application that provides information on investments and services, you can add augmented analytics and embedded BI to your application to allow your users to perform analytics to determine how successful their investment strategy is and where their money is being leveraged. A health or fitness application can also provide analytics to analyze fitness regimens and results, medical results for medications, i.e., blood pressure reduction following a new medication protocol, etc.
Harvard Business Review states that employees spend up to five weeks a year toggling between applications. That’s a lot of wasted time! If you can promote your own application and product with embedded BI, you can offer your end users a seamless experience and allow them to gain insight into data, which gives you a competitive edge and sets you apart from other service providers in the market.
If you embed analytics within your product or application, you can provide partners, suppliers, vendors and customers with a tool that supports fact-based decisions and metrics within a familiar application. These self-serve embedded BI options are suitable for all types of software products and applications, and allow you to integrate dashboards, to monetize data within products and to create a value-added experience for customers. You can drive user adoption and build loyalty using analytical workflow.
Remember that your competitors are always looking for ways to gain an advantage and, when it comes to competitive advantage, nothing is better than customer loyalty. To gain that advantage, you will want to make your end user’s life easier with embedded BI that helps them see and analyze data, optimize time and enable valuable insight so that they can make the right decision, make recommendations and suggestions to solve problems and to capitalize on opportunities.
Providing this information within your popular application helps the user to adapt to their own business needs and will ensure software product adoption with positive enterprise outcomes. These tools are easy-to-use and do not require a data scientist or IT professional. They make analytics easy to use and to understand which your customers will appreciate.
‘Gartner states that embedded BI provides benefits to users when, ‘data analysis occurs within a user’s natural workflow, without the need to toggle to another application.’
You can find out more about the Smarten Embedded BI And Integration APIs solution and add powerful functionality and access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products. Provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Your business users and your customers will appreciate the ease-of-use and access and you will gain a competitive advantage. Read our White Paper: ‘Making The Case For Embedded BI And Analytics.’
How Can Embedded BI Help ISV Partners Improve Revenue and Market Visibility?!
Recent research reveals that 67% of companies surveyed say time spent in their applications increased after they embedded analytics. Why do you suppose that is?
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.
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.
Business Users Can and Will Use Embedded BI to Improve Performance!
If your organization is considering BI tools or augmented analytics but your management or IT team believes it will be too difficult to engender user adoption, it is important to understand your options. With the right tools and strategy, your enterprise can implement analytics, democratize data and improve data literacy, assuring user adoption and a significant return on investment (ROI) and low total cost of ownership (TCO).
‘With the right solution and features, and an Embedded BI solution with integration APIs, the organization can offer its business users the tools they need, and make user adoption as easy as possible.’
In the Gartner Analytics and BI Magic Quadrant customer reference survey, the average modern analytics and BI Adoption rate is 35%. But that doesn’t have to be you! There are numerous reasons for poor user adoption. In this article, we discuss the factors for success and how your business can ensure user adoption and improved performance.
Provide augmented analytics that leverage Integration APIs to support embedded BI tools within enterprise applications and public websites. Intuitive, self-serve tools put the power of facts, data and business insight in the hands of business users. With access to self-serve analytics from within familiar enterprise apps, BI adoption and use increases exponentially. Business users can access augmented analytics and BI tools from within their enterprise applications or mobile apps and enjoy deep dive capabilities, engender collaboration, data sharing and fact-based decisions. Because these tools are accessible and easy to use, your business users will WANT to use analytics.
Provide Single Sign-On Access (SSO). SSO means your users can log in to their favorite, familiar app using existing login credentials. Your IT team will have the confidence of leveraging existing security protocols including OAuth2, OpenID and other custom SSO authentications and enterprise developers can implement custom SSO authentication using AD or Open LDAP to link analytics with existing portals or applications. Business users do not need to understand or consider any of those security issues. All they need to know is that they can login to their enterprise app and have access to embedded BI and augmented analytics within that application. Again…it’s easy so they are more likely to adopt and use the tools.
Provide Embedded BI Objects from within your application(s) with easy to use, scalable Integration API so business users can leverage Dashboards, Crosstab, Tabular, KPIs, Graphs, Reports, Clickless Analytics for simple, intuitive searches using natural language processing (NLP). These new features and tools will allow your users to enjoy sophisticated analytics without extensive training and will provide them with valuable insight and support for fact-based decisions.
Businesses that report poor user adoption of analytics typically fall short on planning and do not provide the right tools or the right environment to support user adoption. With the right solution and features, and an Embedded BI solution with integration APIs, the organization can offer its business users the tools they need, and make user adoption as easy as possible. If a business user has easy access, great new features and obvious value to support their role and their responsibilities, the enterprise can ensure user adoption and great return on investment (ROI).
‘Provide augmented analytics that leverage Integration APIs to support embedded BI tools within enterprise applications and public websites’
Leverage the Smarten approach to Embedded BI And Integration APIs to add powerful functionality and provide access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products and to provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Reduce time to market and stay ahead of the competition!
Embedded BI Extends and Expands the Useful Life of Enterprise Solutions!
Businesses develop and/or license software solutions for a variety of reasons. Most enterprises invest in software to solve a problem, perform tasks, etc. But the useful life of a software solution and the breadth and depth of its overall value can often fall short of expectations for return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO).
‘By adding the value of Embedded BI with integration APIs, the team can achieve results, better leverage and use data by producing actionable reports and clear insight, and extend the useful life of the existing software applications.’
In order to leverage the full value of your users’ favorite software application and to increase user adoption, an enterprise can add embedded BI and augmented analytics. By providing seamless access to analytics in a single sign-on environment, the organization can ensure that business users get the tools they need to make recommendations, support decisions, report on progress, solve problems and identify opportunities, thereby improving the value of the existing software solution and the value of the team member as an asset to the organization.
With the right augmented analytics solution, business users can enjoy the advantages of sophisticated BI tools without additional training or complex processes and queries. Analytics are embedded via APIs for a seamless, scalable approach to analytics without a lengthy integration or implementation process.
According to Forbes, ‘the average single application today is powered by 18 APIs. Half of all B2B collaboration happens through APIs. And most staggeringly — 83% of all web traffic is attributable to APIs.’
Embedded BI with integration APIs offers numerous benefits including:
The best of analytics and best practices of application integration to produce results and encourage user adoption
Expansion and improvement of the value of existing software applications by adding integrated analytics
The use of data within an existing application or software product to produce meaningful analytics and reports
Every business management team looks hard and long at software investments. These investments are typically expensive and time-consuming and often over promise when it comes to results. But once committed, these investments must be justified and cannot be undone without a lot of difficulty, confusion and complex backtracking. After the implementation, the IT team and business users are committed to the use of the software (whether it is helpful or not) and business managers find themselves in a quandary. They need the software to perform certain tasks but the software does not provide the promised value, ROI or TCO.
By adding the value of Embedded BI with integration APIs, the team can achieve results, better leverage and use data by producing actionable reports and clear insight, and extend the useful life of the existing software applications – all without requiring extensive training or complex implementation and additional high-cost investments.
‘In order to leverage the full value of your users’ favorite software application and to increase user adoption, an enterprise can add embedded BI and augmented analytics.’
Leverage the Smarten approach to Embedded BI And Integration APIs to add powerful functionality and provide access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products and to provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Reduce time to market and stay ahead of the competition!
Why Spend Time and Money Developing BI? Embed BI in Your Software Product!
The research and technology consulting firm, Gartner predicts that ‘By 2023, overall analytics adoption will increase from 35% to 50%, driven by vertical and domain-specific augmented analytics solutions.’ Whether your software business produces solutions or modules for a vertical market, a specific industry or a government or public service market, building an analytical solution to serve your clients or partners is an expensive, complicated proposition and one that will require significant funding and skilled resources.
Technology research and consulting firm, Gartner, predicts that, ‘By 2023, data literacy will become an explicit and necessary driver of business value, demonstrated by its formal inclusion in over 80% of data and analytics strategies and change management programs.’
The technology research and consulting firm, Gartner predicted that ‘By 2023, 60% of organizations will compose components from three or more analytics solutions to build business applications infused with analytics that connect insights to actions.’
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