You have questions, BI can give you answers
Marketing guru Seth Godin recently posted a list of hypotheical questions he would like answered. My first thought as I read through the list was this: business intelligence software is made to answer these types of questions! A BI solution is about combining data from unrelated sources in order to make better decisions, be it a decision about a pundit’s credibility (question #16) or how to evaluate the effectiveness of your sales reps (question #12).
Unfortunately, most BI solutions are not this agile. The enterprise BI tools are made to collect, scrub and aggregate the data, build a data warehouse, model the data, create meta-data layers, and develop pixel perfect reports that can be delivered in an infinite number of formats and variations. There is no question that this needs to be done in most organizations, but there is a growing need for lighter-weight BI implementations. Perhaps the data does not have to be as high of quality, the BI/DW infrastructure does not have to be built to last, but the results must be timely and the development cycle agile.
The emerging business intelligence vendors, such as Yellowfin BI, Widgenie (by LogiXML), and Panorama (among others) all recognize this evolution. BI is about allowing business users to rapidly combine data to get useful results that can be easily visualized and shared.
My RSS Feed as an Image
My RSS Feed as an Image
I created this image using Wordle. Thanks to Shawn Rogers for the link.
Introducing Yellowfin Business Intelligence
The focus of my company up to now has been consulting with Cognos Business Intelligence software. However, I am looking to expand my entrepreneurial horizons, and to that end, I am currently working on a partnership with Yellowfin, an upstart BI software developer based in Melbourne, Australia. Their flagship product, Yellowfin BI, emphasizes usability and making business intelligence easy: easy to configure, easy to administer and most of all, easy to use. (More about their design philosophy can be read here.) I believe that the time has come for this type of product in the BI market for the following reasons:
- Compared to most enterprise software packages, the UI is sublime.
- 100% web based, with a zero footprint web browser client.
- It is built on open source technology with open standards.
- No hand coding of SQL is required.
- A rapid deployment is not only possible, but it can be expected.
In short, Yellowfin is simple, secure and scalable. All of this adds up to a faster path to business value.
Yellowfin is simple, secure and scalable.
What I see is the greatest advantage of Yellowfin is the shift from the traditional BI project thinking. Traditionally, this entails an attempt to build an all encompassing data warehouse, followed by countless hours of meta-data and report development. The pitfalls are plenty in this approach. Yellowfin BI is not a panacea, but the software lends itself to a more agile approach to BI development. While it is robust enough for an enterprise deployment, it is ideal for the SMB or an isolated division of a larger organization that is not well served by the central IT department.
Yellowfin has been successful in the Asia-Pacific region but the company is only beginning to make a splash (pun intended) in North America. It has been selling well as a front end for Sybase IQ, and Yellowfin is currently expanding the partnership with Sybase globally. Historically, the Sybase BI partner of choice has been Microstrategy, but I expect that it is only a matter of time before Yellowfin gains the upper hand here.
If you interested in learning more about Yellowfin, please contact me, especially if you are in Canada and you are searching for a simple, secure and scalable BI solution.