Everyone over the age of five knows about social networks and social media. No matter which platform you prefer and how you choose to share your thoughts and ideas, you are no doubt engaged in the networking world. When it comes to business intelligence and analytics, there is no reason you can’t employ the same techniques to share, collaborate, create and innovate.
Every business has heard and read about business intelligence and the benefits of building a base of intelligence from which to drive your business results and make fact-based decisions. One of the benefits that is often overlooked is the aspect of Social BI. When a business chooses a BI tool that encourages social BI, it further promotes user adoption, data democratization and data literacy. As business users embrace and share data, their level of proficiency and comfort will increase and the business can achieve the results it hopes for and improve productivity, collaboration and the use of data within the organization.
If you are looking for a business intelligence solution, be sure to consider the Mobile BI factor. Mobile business intelligence is a necessity in today’s business environment. With so many users working from home, on the road or working after hours, it is critical to provide users with real time BI tools that can be used on any type of smart phone, tablet, laptop or desktop with seamless resolution and performance.
If you are contemplating a business intelligence tool for the first time, or if you are unhappy with your current BI tool and you want to find a better solution, you need to focus on the experience, skill and self-serve capabilities of the business intelligence company. Every business that is using a business intelligence initiative to improve data accuracy and decision-making is following the trend of data democratization and improved data literacy and choosing BI tools that are designed to be self-serve so business users can leverage features and functionality to make better decisions, to plan, forecast and measure results with more accuracy and dependability.
What exactly is social business intelligence? The concept of Social BI is really quite simple. Social BI is similar to social media and social networking, in that it embraces the tasks associated with data analytics and makes these tasks and the resulting data insight a social experience by providing tools and an environment that encourages business users and team members to share data, make fact-based decisions based on that data and learn from each other to help each user adopt and leverage analytics. Power users are the ‘influencers’ of social BI and they can influence data popularity, the types of reports and data sharing within the organization and the creative ways in which people use data.
If your business is planning to implement self service business intelligence, you may be focused on cascading data analysis and fact-based decision-making throughout the enterprise and, hopefully, your focus includes improving the data literacy of your business users and team members.
You would have to be living on another planet to avoid social networking these days. The concept has permeated our lives and that includes the business environment. Whether you are engaging in online outreach to your customers and partners or encouraging sharing of data within your organization, you have probably experienced the benefits of shared knowledge, and collaboration and the new and innovative ideas and solutions that result from this kind of sharing.
Social networking is here to stay. Your business users are familiar with these tools and, if used in the right way, these types of social tools can significantly contribute to a common understanding of information, and to collaboration and increased productivity.
Social Business Intelligence, AKA Social BI, may seem like a frivolous achievement, but it is far from frivolous! Consider what happens when people share and collaborate. And, if you expand the view of Social BI benefits, you will discover that business users who have access to a Social BI environment can also improve business readiness, agility and results.
As self-serve business intelligence and data analytics has evolved, the concept of Social BI and business intelligence collaboration has become more prominent. Today’s trends in social networking and collaboration drive Social BI within the organization and, as this concept becomes more mainstream, business users and organizations reap the benefits of these collaborative efforts and of shared data analytics and data popularity.
