Does Business Intelligence Software Have To Cost So Much?

Just as with CRM software, they are attempting to sell you with features and not allowing you to ask them how you will solve a particular business problem you face. One thing you will notice with any software, but especially with business intelligence software, is that the vendor will use pretty pictures to entice you. After all, a picture is worth a thousand solutions.

That's the problem. You don't need a thousand solutions. You need one solid, well designed and usable solution. So, how do you get that from your vendor?  Just ask them, and you'll get redirected responses like these:

"Well, as you can see, we have an array of pre-designed dashboard reports that will allow to quickly begin using our business intelligence software!"

or.......

"Our Data Warehouses can be built within months. And we'll let you decide whether to load data marts from your Data Warehouse, or the other way around. Did I mention it would only take months?"

or.......

"We will teach you how to analyze your business using our modules developed on industry best practices"

Uggh! Best practices? What do these guys know about your business? If you're trying to be competitive, why would you want to use something the same way your competition is?

Turning Business Intelligence Software To Your Advantage

First off, there is no reason to think that you will sacrifice whiz bang features just because you go thru the process of determining what key measures you will need to manage your business. That's simply not the case. Nor will you have to pay thru the nose any longer, because there are tools out there designed for the middle market. And let me tell you, they are just as powerful for you because you will only purchase and develop what you need and not what the vendor needs.

When you are figuring out what you need, and I urge you to use cross-functional and multi-tiered teams while you develop your CRM strategy, keep these things in mind:

• An effective executive doesn't have the time to analyze the data. His or her job is to monitor adverse trends. So, don't put data in front of them. Information is what they are looking for
  
• An effective middle tier executive will need to understand the general area contributing to adverse trends because the senior executive is going to want to know when they call
  
• A lower level worker needs to have information designed to help them uncover identify the root cause of an adverse trend.
  

So, what does that senior executive dashboard look like? I always look back to my early banking days. I was shown a senior executive dashboard that simply had a few rectangles on the screen. Each was either colored Red, Yellow or Green. Pretty simple. The executive understood the metaphor and as long as they were green, nothing needed to be done.

It would almost be a shame to do that with today's business intelligence software because they have so many cool imagery. Here are a few examples of high lever gauges you could use.

If I were an executive responsible for a large enterprise, my time would be limited. I'd be looking for the executive summary of Dashboards. Gauges like these would might be helpful because as long as the needle is in the green, I'm OK. This is a simple metaphor we see each time we check the engine temperature in our car.

You could easily add a yellow region to a gauge like this if you like a risk buffer zone. It depends on your specific tolerance.

Once you've reached your tolerance, you can either pick up the phone and call someone who can tell you what's going on, or in a smaller company, you may just want to click the gauge to get a more detailed analysis.

This level of information supports the risk indicators at Tier 1. You will begin to see where the risk is coming from, generally speaking. But most likely, it's going to require a more thorough analysis done by a lower tier of analyst.

I don't necessarily agree that business intelligence software needs to be deployed to all levels. The information we've just gotten from the first two were far more than most enterprise managers have today. If the adverse trend can be be identified earlier, it's possible that is enough and the grunt work can be done the old fashioned way.

But these tools aren't just for early warning systems. You may have regular strategy meetings and tools such as these could be invaluable. That's why it's so important to tell your vendor what you need and not the other way around. And it's also important why the price of the software, the consulting services and hardware platform need to be reasonable! Here's why....

• They are your requirements
  
• You did the work
  
• It's not their best practices you intend to use.
  

I work with a product that exceeds the needs of my middle market customers and I'm convinced it would work in a large enterprise as well. No data warehouse required and it performs like a dream. I can usually have serious results within weeks...not months or years. If you'd like to know more, you know where to reach me!

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