Define requirements for BI solutions

Business intelligence tools ultimately process and visualize data to enable thorough analysis and well-founded decisions. When the right data is made available to the right people as a basis for decisions, that can create a major competitive advantage.

To decide which BI approach and which concrete vendor fit best, you first need to define your own requirements. At its core, this means clearly defining your own goals and requirements and making decisions against them. Planning should cover both the short and the long term.

A tool that is perfect for a 2-person startup can be completely unsuitable for a 5,000-employee enterprise. What works brilliantly for a marketing agency is not automatically a fit for a manufacturing company.

We will now go through the recommended approach to identifying the best-fitting solution step by step.

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This article explains the different types of BI tools, shows what to pay attention to when selecting one, and provides a ready-made criteria catalog. Concrete use cases in the article BI tools: evaluate and decide show what the selection process looks like in practice.

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What is a BI tool and what types exist?

In general, BI tools are platforms or tools used to store, clean, prepare, connect, visualize, and share data. A basic distinction is made between traditional business intelligence software and self-service BI applications.

Traditional BI software and processes:

This approach consists of building and operating your own data system and visualizing it through external tools. In this technical process, the data is stored, processed, and visualized internally.

That requires the right infrastructure, know-how, and staffing. The departments and roles typically involved are IT, data engineers, and data analysts.

The data can come, for example, from internal or external software systems. It has to be cleaned and prepared and is then usually stored in internal databases. A visualization tool makes the data accessible to users and decision makers.

The initial and ongoing effort of this approach is significant: hardware components must be available, databases must be set up, automated imports must be configured, and the data must be cleaned.

Then the data has to be connected to the visualization software and assembled there into useful reports. In return, this process can be tailored freely to your own needs. There are virtually no limits to the types of reports you can create.

Self-service business intelligence:

A self-service business intelligence tool is an all-in-one solution. Data is imported, stored, and visualized through one application. It does not require your own architecture, only a subscription.

These tools are designed so they can be set up and used independently of IT. Drag-and-drop interaction, automated data imports, and professional dashboard templates enable fast setup and simple use. They can be set up and used without prior knowledge.

Here too, data can be imported from internal or external software. In addition, XLSX and CSV imports are often possible. Cleaning, storage, and data protection are handled by the self-service application. Visualization also takes place in this same application.

Setup and operation require far less effort here. Dashboards can be ready in just a few clicks if the relevant data is available. At the same time, onboarding and training processes as well as rules and guidelines become even more important when everyone can work with data more freely.

It is important to ensure that the self-service solution meets the requirements. It must be able to process the relevant data and present it in the desired way. More specialized requirements should be added to the evaluation catalog.

Which option should you choose?

To decide clearly between these options, you should first develop a business intelligence strategy for your own company. Goals, requirements, resources, and the data inventory should be the decisive criteria.

No matter the tool, the foundation must be right

Regardless of the tool choice, you need to plan which data should be analyzed in the business intelligence process and where that data comes from.

With self-service BI, this data does not have to be stored, prepared, and managed in-house. But it still has to be captured and imported so it can be used in the software.

It is recommended to create a plan with four levels:

1. Which goals do we want to achieve with BI?
2. Which processes and KPIs do we prioritize?
3. How do we capture the relevant data?
4. How do we actively integrate BI into our processes?

For example, revenue figures can come from accounting software, an internal software solution, or even a spreadsheet.

Where should I start to find the best BI solution?

First, we need a current-state assessment. The following questions should be clarified so that further research and planning can build on them:

1. Which concrete goals are being pursued with business intelligence?

Transparency into internal processes and outcomes is one important result of business intelligence. But to create concrete value, specific goals should instead be developed, prioritized, and pursued.

It is highly recommended to at least outline the BI strategy before researching vendors directly.

2. How deeply do we integrate BI and how do we prioritize?

You should determine where data as a basis for decisions provides the greatest benefit and then prioritize accordingly. In principle, you should start small and expand when it proves successful.

For a sales employee, it can be very useful to see message volume, reply rate, and close rate. But management will likely have a greater influence on the company’s overall outcome.

Which data do we need?

Modern software usually offers interfaces to transfer data to external systems. This means data from accounting, CRM, ERP, web analytics, social media, and other services can usually be used without much friction.

Whether it is traditional BI or self-service, the data has to be captured somewhere. It is recommended to create an inventory of which data is needed for the goals, whether it already exists, and which data sources still need to be addressed.

Criteria catalog

This criteria catalog can be used to evaluate self-service BI applications as well as traditional setups in order to find the best solution for the individual situation. In the first pass, it is advisable to weight the topics based on your individual goals and requirements. In the next step, evaluate each category per vendor to make them comparable.

If needed, hard exclusion criteria can and should be defined as well, for example data protection or cost.

Conclusion

Which BI tool is the best depends on the individual requirements you define. Goals must be set, the origin of the data must be considered, and evaluation criteria must be defined and weighted.

Based on the goals, it is often possible to clarify quickly whether a self-service or a traditional BI solution is more suitable. With a clear evaluation catalog, different vendors can be compared easily.

The article BI tools: evaluate and decide uses concrete use cases to show what this process looks like for different types of companies.

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