You have questions, BI can give you answers

July 10, 2008 · Filed Under BI

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.

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