Business intelligence has developed significantly in recent years: While specialized professionals could only use BI tools for a long time, newer BI software platforms allow an ever-widening range of employees to quickly access and analyze data and use it for their daily work.
But the essential requirement for a successful BI workflow is that the associated tool fits the company and is perfectly tailored to its processes and goals.
BI Systems Require Teamwork
BI solutions support the work of various business units. The management department uses the data, for example, to professionalize decision-making and to communicate decisions made. Marketing generates and publishes data-driven content.
So before you decide on a BI system, you have to work together to identify and weigh individual challenges and requirements for the potential tool. Since you want all of your business units to benefit from the BI solution, you need to consider the expectations of all of your business units in the decision-making process.
The following questions can help you:
- How is the data structure of the company structured?
- Can the analytics workflow steps be performed on one platform, or does data need to be transformed first?
- How often and in what way should the data be available?
- How should they be scaled?
- Will the product only be used in the company in the long term, or should some data also be accessible to project partners?
- How are you staffed to
- Carry out analytics workflows?
BI systems: They Should Do That
Once your requirements have been clearly defined, you need to choose a BI tool with a broad portfolio of essential functions and analysis tools and is flexible in scaling these functions. They must also be usable by the people involved in the analytics workflow.
When evaluating, you should therefore pay attention to five criteria:
Features
The BI tool must be seamlessly integrated into your existing system architecture. This applies to connectivity with your e-commerce, CRM, and PIM systems and the data from your social media channels. Because different departments need different information for everyday work processes and to optimize them. It is essential that reports and dashboards access live data and can be created individually for department-specific questions.
Structure Of The Platform
The first thing to consider when building the platform is the system’s performance. In addition, the possibilities for cloud computing should be considered, which save you acquisition and maintenance costs. The control of the dashboards from different end devices is also essential so that the data is available everywhere.
Services & Support
The service provided by the provider plays a significant role when deciding on a BI solution. Questions and problems should be dealt with promptly and in good quality because this is the only way your company can benefit from the system.
Usability
When it comes to user-friendliness, the top priority is that even employees with little technical know-how can operate the system intuitively. It is also essential that users quickly access the data from all devices when they are going. Any questions can be dealt with directly in the branch or during a customer appointment.
Pricing
First of all, costs arise for the implementation and when changing a BI system, such as developing concepts and cleaning and processing data.
There are also various license models for BI systems, which should be individually adapted and flexibly changed to the company’s requirements, such as the number of users.
It should also be taken into account that additional support, training, and required technologies can result in additional costs.
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