Business intelligence without a doubt is crucial to the growth and success of any organization. Information pulled from internal sources and systems such as ERPs, CRMs, communication histories, accounting and payable software and security logs is just as important as the data retrieved from external sources. 

With the advent of business intelligence software, companies can gather, centralize, and analyze huge volumes of internal data and transform them into useful and actionable business insights in a speedy manner. As big data continually becomes more prevalent, the demand for BI solutions and business analytics tools will continue to soar. An industry report on the business intelligence market predicts that the sector will grow to US$ 105.08 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 12.3% throughout the forecast period from 2019 to 2027.

It’s unarguable how impactful business intelligence and BI software are in today’s business landscape. Investing in one, is an imperative move for upcoming enterprises as well as established businesses that look to transform their operations. 

Below are 5 things to consider while choosing the right business intelligence software for your company.

Know your options and Keep It Within Budget

The price of business intelligence software should be in line with your budget. It is paramount for a company to invest in a BI solution that is not only affordable but at the same time it is also important that the chosen platform meets the specifications and addresses the business requirements.

In January 2020, Better Buys BI pricing guide, suggested that the cost of business intelligence software ranges from $10 per user to a massive $300,000 per license. Along with the company budget, one must be able to identify the BI needs, actual users, features, and factor them.

For example, the most basic business intelligence software comes with core BI capabilities and is designed for those with limited business intelligence knowledge. But for organizations with power users like data scientists and analysts, who require extensive BI functionality in everyday analytics, powerful data visualization tools,and  data warehousing; an advanced and robust business intelligence solution is needed. And these types of BI systems more often than not carry a very hefty price tag.

To ensure that the right BI investment is made, it is important that various vendors are consulted and provide them with the budget and requirements. A great vendor will communicate with you and offer you custom packages that will meet your needs without you breaking the bank.

When Scalability is the Priority

As an organization grows, the amount of data that needs to be processed grows too. It is not long before there is a need to boost the BI system’s ability to retrieve and interpret information. There is a requirement of business intelligence tools and techniques that can keep up with the increasing volume of information. Thus, it is only imperative that one settles for a solution that can quickly scale as and when the requirements change.

Scalability is essential in the world of business intelligence, as BI solutions are no longer limited to providing actionable insights. BI initially started out as a solution to bring down operational costs and drive business efficiency across levels, companies are now looking at BI offering for decision-making improvements as well as enhanced revenues. According to a BI market study, 50% of the companies surveyed expected the BI platforms to support better insights for decision making when it came to improving revenues.

The same report cited research and development, compliance, supply chain management, risk management as main areas impacted by the increasing popularity of BI systems.

It is evident that business intelligence plays a crucial role in the growth and success of organizations. When purchasing BI software, organizations want it to be scalable and flexible. You need it to play specific roles and provide you insights into certain areas of your business that are otherwise invisible.

 

Choose a Reliable Vendor to Partner with

Investing in a business intelligence software vendor is equally important as the product itself. The choice of a vendor partner can have a serious impact and can make or break an organization.  

There are many instances where organizations have lost a sizable amount because they opted for the wrong software vendor partner.Before deciding on the right vendor partner, one must create a shortlist of vendors that fit the bill. Both parties need to make a thorough evaluation of the vendor’s skills while doing an adequate assessment of the project’s scale. It also helps if a vendor includes free training in the package. This helps the internal teams ramp up faster as also  in process set up and adherence.

Transparency is key and the vendor that communicates regularly and considers inputs /suggestions goes a long way. The absence of communication is a hindrance to transparency. Very often it is a major factor in poor project management, which ultimately leads to software implementation failure.

Ease of use

Business intelligence often is technical and intimidating, especially to people who are not well-versed in BI. While choosing a BI software, it needs to be ensured that the solution is easy to use for all user types.

Ease of use is one of the main factors in the quick and successful adoption as well as the implementation of any software by any organization. Successful adoption and implementation directly impacts organizations ROI in a very positive way. Thus, it is important that one factors in the employee expectations of a business intelligence solution, from features to deployment types and everything in between.

Smart way of working

Companies that invested in business intelligence systems have seen their productivity, efficiency, and profitability increase exponentially.

According to a study, 54% of companies that invested in business analytics, including business intelligence, generated ROIs of 101% or more. Adoption of business intelligence solutions results in insight-driven, faster, enhanced operational visibility, decision-making, intelligent hiring choices, and having an edge over the competition.

 

Here is how we at Cintel.io can help you:

As the organizations keep growing and expanding, the significance of these operational reports increases. These provide a time to time picture of the entire organization or division and help the leaders track their performance. Be it any industry or domain, operational reporting is imperative to stay on top of all the processes and get a concise yet complete view. With the emergence and wide acceptance of BI, operational reporting is bound to make positive change across the hierarchy and horizontally too.

We provide a balanced mix of metrics that will help the leaders in identifying the areas that need attention and the ones that need to be tracked regularly.