White Paper
BI for the people –
and the 10 pitfalls to avoid in the new decade.
Business Intelligence emerged twenty years ago as a tool for aiding decision-making. Originally seen as the preserve of analysts and board-level executives, it has slowly evolved into a more democratic medium as organizations have come to realize that decision-makers at all levels and
in all departments need access to timely, relevant information.
Today, a strong move towards the ‘Consumerisation’ of BI is evident. Users are demanding the same speed and ease-of-use from their workplace software as ubiquitous tools like Google have delivered in their personal life.
In short, a new breed of BI tools is eschewing cumbersome, complex technology and instead focusing on making the process as intuitive and rewarding as possible. This latest wave of BI – BI 2.0 – is serving a generation of technologically-savvy, information-hungry users. Characterized
by pioneering features like in-memory and associative analysis, powerful BI 2.0 tools are making a more ‘self-service’ approach to reporting and analysis possible.
With them, non-technical users can combine previously disconnected information for a complete view and analysis on the fly – without help from the IT department.
According to IDC, “the challenges that BI implementations present mean that many organisations still struggle to deploy BI pervasively”. In fact, as outlined in the paper, there are 10 common pitfalls associated with BI 1.0 that prevent organisations from getting full value from their BI investments.