Description
The Shortcut Guide To The Shortcut Guide To tmtm Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies
The Shortcut Guide To
The Shortcut Guide To
tm
tm
Achieving
Business Intelligence
in Midsize Companies
Don Jones
The Shortcut Guide to Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies Don Jones
i
Chapter 3: Debunking the Top?Three Myths of Business Intelligence for Midsize Companies
.... ................................................................................................................................................................................... 41
My th 1: BI Can Be Disruptive....................................................................................................................... 41
Specialized Tools and Training Required ......................................................................................... 42
Long Implementation Times ................................................................................................................... 44
Impact on Other Business Processes .................................................................................................. 44
My th 2: BI Requires Specialized Expertise ............................................................................................ 45
Complicated Deployment and Implementation ............................................................................. 46
Specialized Technology Management Skills ..................................................................................... 46
Large?Company Skills Don’t Scale Down ........................................................................................... 47
Specialized End?User Skills ..................................................................................................................... 48
My th 3: BI Is Expensive .................................................................................................................................. 51
Expensive Acquisition Costs ................................................................................................................... 51
Expensive Consulting Services............................................................................................................... 52
Don’t Like Negotiating with Vendors? ................................................................................................ 52
Un ique Advantages of Midsize Business BI ........................................................................................... 53
In?Memory Analytics .................................................................................................................................. 53
Consistency ..................................................................................................................................................... 54
W hat’s Good for Big Business Is Kind of Good for You Too ........................................................... 54
Business Model Flexibility ....................................................................................................................... 55
Advanced Reporting ................................................................................................................................... 55
Data?Everywhere Accessibility .............................................................................................................. 55
Coming Up Next… ............................................................................................................................................. 57
The Shortcut Guide to Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies Don Jones
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The Shortcut Guide to Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies Don Jones
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Chapter 3: Debunking the Top?Three Myths
of Business Intelligence for Midsize
Companies
There is definitely a pervasive belief that midsize companies simply can’t afford, can’t
handle, or can’t appreciate business intelligence (BI). I even run into executives at midsize
companies who absolutely believe that companies the size of theirs don’t need BI and can’t
benefit from it. It simply isn’t true, and in this chapter, I’m going to play “Mythbusters” and
address the most common misinformation regarding BI as it relates to these companies.
Before I do so, however, I want to get one of the most harmful pieces of misinformation out
of the way, which is this: Midsize companies can’t benefit from BI. That’s patently false; it’s
like saying that midsize companies can’t benefit from customer relationship management
(CRM), accounting software, payroll software, or any other common business tool.
Although it’s true that many of these technology solutions began in extremely large
companies, the fact is that any company can run itself more effectively and efficiently when
these tools are available. It’s also true that the CRM solutions (to take one tool as an
example) used by giant enterprises are built differently than those used by midsize
companies, but that doesn’t mean midsize companies don’t benefit from their particular
versions.
In fact, that’s one of the common themes you’ll find in this chapter: Midsize companies can
and do benefit from the same business tools and capabilities as giant enterprises; those
tools are simply built specifically for the midsize market, and are often easier, less
expensive, and faster to adopt and use than the ones designed for giant enterprises. On to
the myths.
Myth 1: BI Can Be Disruptive
I find that there’s definitely a belief that BI can be disruptive to the business, or at least that
the process of implementing BI can be disruptive. I’ve certainly worked with customers
who have had dedicated project teams work for many, many months at bringing a BI
project to light, and the entire process certainly was disruptive to the business in many
ways. But those were gigantic companies, and many of the problems they dealt with were
ones you’d only run into inside a really large enterprise. Let’s focus on some of the major
aspects of the “disruptive” myth.
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Specialized Tools and Training Required
One objection I hear from midsize companies is that they fear they’ll need to purchase
expensive tools, and undergo extensive training, in order to begin planning and deploying a
BI solution. It’s easy to see where this “myth” comes from—because I can confirm that it
really does happen—inside huge enterprises.
But this is hardly true only with BI projects. Look at nearly any major, enterprise?wide
project in a massive company and you’ll typically see the need for specialized tools,
extensive training, and so on. How many major companies haven’t been through an
exhausting implementation for accounting software? I remember when one past
employer—a 22,000?employee telecommunications division—implemented new financial
software and “specialized tools and training” was an understatement. Horror stories
abound for CRM and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, as well, and I’ve seen
those projects (in one case I got roped into one). There was a ton of specialized tools and
training floating around. But again, that was in a very large company.
Here’s why: Large companies tend to be extremely diversified. They have a lot of things
going on, and they have departments and divisions that operate almost as autonomous
businesses. Simply figuring out what an accounting system needs to look like or how a CRM
solution needs to work requires some very specialized experience. BI is probably an
extreme example of this: A truly enterprise?wide BI system wants to touch every piece of
data the company has so that all that data can play a role in dashboards, reporting, analysis,
“what if” scenarios, and so on. Figuring out where all that data lives, who owns it, how it
works, and how it will be loaded into a data mart or data warehouse are complicated tasks.
The tools used to design the resulting data warehouse are complicated and can be
expensive; the tools used to gather information and requirements are equally specialized.
But that’s in a very large company.
So if “specialized tools and training” are a truth for large enterprises, why are things any
different for a midsize company? I don’t want to come across as suggesting that midsize
companies are somehow more generic than larger enterprises, because that isn’t true. But
the fact is that most midsize companies do operate by a more common set of rules and
practices than large companies do. That isn’t a downside of being a midsize company; it’s a
benefit that most large enterprises often wish they still had. Bear with me for a moment
while I explain.
Start by considering payroll. Most midsize companies have fairly basic and common payroll
needs: You pay employees, you keep track of paid time off, you account for tax
withholdings, and you likely extract some money for benefits. No matter what line of
business you’re in, payroll tends to look the same—so much so that midsize companies
often outsource their payroll entirely or use off?the?shelf software packages that all work
the same way. Midsize companies don’t often have a massive cadre of HR folks, and so
those companies tend to keep their payroll within the realm that can be handled by
outsourced companies or by off?the?shelf payroll packages. When you get to be a huge
company, however, and you build up a huge HR department, it starts to be easier to do
different things with payroll, and so payroll becomes almost a side business within the
enterprise—specialized to the enterprise’s needs.
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What about accounting? Midsize companies tend to follow Generally Acceptable
Accounting Practices (GAAP), and there are numerous off?the?shelf software packages that
provide perfectly acceptable accounting capabilities. Midsize companies do accounting
because they have to, not because they especially enjoy it; therefore, they tend to keep their
accounting practices within the domain that an off?the?shelf (or lightly customized)
accounting package can handle. Sure, midsize companies could start doing complicated
things with accounting, and they’d save some money—but they wouldn’t save enough to
make it worth the extra complication. Large companies, however, can see bigger savings
from more complicated and detailed accounting practices, and so those large companies
invest in specialized software, specialized processes, and so on.
This same trend continues through just about every business tool: Midsize companies could
have the same level of complexity as a giant business, but there’s not a huge return in doing
so. Therefore, midsize companies tend to have back?end systems that all look and work in a
very similar way. Those systems, to a degree, drive (or at least influence) the company’s
business processes and workflows, meaning that most midsize companies look—from a
back?end perspective—if not identical, then at least very similar. There’s an important
truth here that I want to emphasize: Midsize companies often steer clear of very customized
tools and processes because those customizations add complexity that are not justified—to a
midsize company—in terms of their added value.
So how does this affect BI implementations in a midsize company? The reason a massive
enterprise needs specialized BI tools, skills, and training is because every single massive
enterprise looks entirely different from the others. They’ve all adopted their own
customized accounting, payroll, ERP, CRM, and other practices. Designing a BI
infrastructure that utilizes all those data sources will, obviously, be a customized
raining. undertaking and will require specialized skills, tools, and t
A BI solution designed specifically for midsize companies still requires specialized tools and
training, but because midsize companies look so similar on the back?end, those specialized
tools and training come into play once, when the BI solution is initially created by its
vendor. After that, the same pre?made BI solution will—with perhaps some light
customization—be suitable for most midsize companies simply because most midsize
companies are using the business practices and patterns that were taken as assumptions
when the BI solution was created in the first place. In other words, a midsize company can
do without the specialized tools and training simply because a midsize company will tend to
steer clear of the customizations that make the tools and training necessary for an
individual BI deployment.
This is an important concept for debunking many of the BI myths in this chapter, so I
appreciate you bearing with me through this explanation. Let me try and wrap it up with a
non?business analogy, just to make sure I’ve made this important point.
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Consider a NASCAR car. That car requires some expensive, specialized tools, and its driver
requires extensive, specialized training. Why? Those tools and training can bring the
hundredths?of?a?second advantage that means a win. Most normal drivers—like you and
me—don’t need a hundredths?of?a?second advantage, so we make do with cars that don’t
need highly?specialized tools. That means we can very feasibly purchase and own a car
without having any specialized tools or training. The cars we buy are designed to work in a
standardized fashion, even though the cars available to us vary widely in specific features
and capabilities.
That’s basically why midsize companies don’t need specialized tools and training to do a BI
implementation: Pre?packaged solutions that are designed for the way most midsize
companies already work have the specialized tools and training built right in.
Long Implementation Times
I was on a BI project in a 40,000?employee company that took 2 years to complete. No
kidding. We spent the first 9 months on requirements gathering, something like 3 months
designing reports and data warehouses and such, and a year on the actual production
implementation and the inevitable, “oh, can it also do this?” requests from the system’s
users. Why so long? Well, it was a huge company. Data was everywhere, and we had to
reverse?engineer how the company worked in order to build an effective data warehouse.
That’s kind of a worst?case example, but it serves to illustrate the point that BI can take a
very long time. In big companies.
I won’t belabor the point I made in the previous section any further, except to say that
because most midsize companies use similar back?end tools and processes, it doesn’t have
to take nearly as long to implement a usable, effective BI solution in those companies. Sure,
this still isn’t a case where you double?click Setup and are done—but it’s closer to that than
the implementation that giant companies undertake.
In many cases, prepackaged midsize BI solutions are “all in one” packages. You install a
single piece of software and you get a place for a data warehouse, Web server, data?loading
components, in?memory analytics, reporting, dashboarding, and everything else a BI
system needs. You just point it at your existing business data and let it go to work. I’ve seen
implementation times of a few weeks or so, using the existing IT staff. Some companies
might be able to get a BI solution up and running in even less time, especially if the solution
is initially only addressing a single division or department within the company, simply
because that means fewer data connections that have to be made.
Impact on Other Business Processes
I think the first two pieces of this myth pretty much handle this third one. If midsize
companies can implement a prepackaged BI solution in a few weeks, using their existing IT
staff, and without having to offer extensive training to half the company employees, well,
then the BI implementation isn’t going to be very disruptive.
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Most of the “disruption” in a large?scale BI deployment comes from the discovery and
requirements?gathering phases, where BI project team members invade every corner of
the company trying to figure out what data lives where, how everything fits together, and
so on. The IT staff gets distracted with new hardware, complicated new software, complex
data connections, and so forth. With a prepackaged BI solution, there’s simply no
opportunity for any of that to occur: You don’t have a months?long discovery and
requirements?gathering phase, and the IT staff is usually dealing with a single, simpler
piece of integrated software that’s much more within the scope of what they’re used to
dealing with.
Myth 2: BI Requires Specialized Expertise
When I talk to executives in midsize companies, I think the first and loudest objection to BI
is the belief that the company is going to have to hire a cadre of specialized (and expensive)
consultants to make BI happen.
That’s certainly been true in many large companies I’ve worked with, mainly because their
IT staff lacked the specialized skills it takes to plan and implement a data warehouse and
other BI elements. Even after the main implementation is over, consultants and trainers
usually stay around for several months teaching the company’s executives, managers, and
other users how to operate the BI solution—and in some cases, I’ve seen some consultants
turn into full?time employees, specializing in BI and in helping the company’s users take
advantage of the system. But midsize companies don’t need to deal with that.
Here’s another analogy: Consider two companies that build homes for a living. One
company only builds custom homes that cost millions of dollars; the other builds homes in
master?planned communities and charges a few hundred thousand dollars. Both companies
build great?looking homes, and they use many of the same raw materials. They’re also held
to the same building codes and other practices, and they both believe in creating a high?
quality product.
When the first company begins architecting a new home, a lot of specialized tools are
required. Architects have to draw every aspect of the new home, and engineers have to
figure out the roof structure, load?bearing capacities, and so on. Because their customers
are paying huge sums of money, every job is completely customized, and so the architects
and engineers get involved every time. The company’s customers all lead wildly different
lifestyles: Some want in?home recording studios, others want massive multi?car garages,
and so on, so all that customization is really a big part of the business.
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The second company’s customers don’t want to spend millions on a home, though. So the
second company offers a few pre?designed floor plans, all of which have been architected
and engineered in advance. These aren’t cookie?cutter homes; the builder understands
which walls are load?bearing, for example, and can do minor customizations that don’t
affect the pre?engineered structural integrity. This company’s customers don’t demand a
high level of customization—for example, they simply want to pick out their cabinets and
countertops. Because these customers don’t want or need designed?from?scratch homes,
they save themselves the expense of an architect and engineer. It’s not that those
specialized skills were never needed; they were simply only needed once, and the results of
their work will be used many times, by many different customers.
This “one time engagement” of specialized expertise is what debunks this myth for midsize
businesses. Let’s look at some specifics.
Complicated Deployment and Implementation
Although a pre?engineered midsize business BI solution isn’t exactly as simple as “double
click Setup,” it is, as I’ve already mentioned, not a lot more complicated than that. At least,
it’s certainly not as complicated as designing a whole new BI solution entirely from scratch.
Deployment and implementation does start with double?clicking Setup, often installing a
completely integrated, one?piece (or few?piece) solution that contains pre?built BI
components such as a data warehouse, reports, and so on. Deployment and implementation
is about the same complexity level as deploying and implementing any other server
software, such as a database server or messaging server.
The most complex part of the implementation is often the part where you connect the BI
system to your other business systems. Typically, prepackaged BI solutions offer “wizards”
and other tools to help make this process easier. Prepackaged solutions may even come
with built?in “connectors” for common midsize business back?end systems, such as
accounting software, ERP systems, CRM systems, and so forth. So although this isn’t a “no
brainer” part of the BI solution deployment, it’s certainly something that the average IT
staff can handle—without highly?specialized skills.
Specialized Technology Management Skills
There’s also a concern that midsize companies don’t have the necessary skills in their
existing IT staff to manage a BI solution on an ongoing basis. Fortunately, that’s not
generally a concern. In fact, even some extremely large enterprises get away with very little
in the way of specialized technology management skills.
There are two aspects of managing a deployed BI solution. The first is the simple, basic,
day?to?day operational stuff: keeping databases tuned for performance, backing up servers,
keeping servers properly patched and updated, and so forth. This kind of maintenance is
something any normal IT staffer should be able to handle; the most complicated
maintenance task—database tuning—is frankly something that can be more or less set up
once and then scheduled to run automatically; prepackaged BI solutions typically have this
built?in and are advertised as “self?maintaining.”
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The other aspect of BI solution management is ongoing customization. Big companies
change their patterns and practices over time, evolving their business. Some large
enterprises make sweeping changes fairly often—and feel the operational pain when all
their systems, including accounting, ERP, CRM, and so on, need to be updated to reflect the
changes in the business model. For those companies, having specialized IT skills on staff is
a cost of doing business. Plenty of huge companies, though, make relatively few changes to
their basic patterns and practices. They don’t want to re?architect their accounting records,
re?design their CRM solutions, or re?design their BI solution. So those companies, even
though they’re quite large, often do without specialized BI skills on staff. Midsize
companies also tend to avoid the kind of complex changes that require sweeping changes
to their back?end systems. Remember, midsize companies often steer clear of very
customized tools and processes because those customizations add complexity that is not
justified—to a midsize company—in terms of its added value.
Large?Company Skills Don’t Scale Down
Some midsize companies are fortunate enough to have BI experience on?staff. Typically, it’s
in the form of an IT staffer who perhaps worked on a BI project in a previous job—often
with a large company. Or it might be an executive or manager who used BI solutions in past
jobs. The fear, however, is that those large?company skills won’t scale down to the midsize
business, meaning those existing skills are at best useless, and are at worst dangerous, as
they will drive big?company decisions that aren’t appropriate for a midsize business.
In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve spent a lot of time writing
about prepackaged BI solutions for midsize companies; it would be very easy to assume
that “prepackaged” somehow means “different” or “less capable.” Not so. Prepackaged BI
solutions are BI solutions; they work in much the same way that big companies’ BI
solutions work, and past experience with any BI system will make someone more
comfortable with any other BI system. “Prepackaged” simply means “assembled for you”
cust . rather than “build it yourself;” om?built BI solutions are custom, not necessarily better
So large?company skills don’t need to “scale down” to midsize businesses; those skills are
valuable exactly as they are.
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Specialized End?User Skills
Do BI systems require specialized end?user skills? Well…yes and no. This isn’t a case where
I’m going to tell you—again—that midsize companies simply don’t need the same skills as
big companies. As I outlined in the previous section, big?company BI skills work well in a
midsize environment; that suggests that any BI implementation will need the same skills,
so someone who doesn’t have those skills will need training. Right?
Again, yes and no. Let me fall back to the example of accounting systems. In the very
earliest days of computerized accounting systems, computerized accounting was only done
by big businesses. A lot of specialized skills were involved; midsize businesses stuck with
pencil?and?paper ledgers. As more and more big businesses used those accounting systems,
however, the folks who created those systems found ways to make them easier to use.
Eventually, that resulted in prepackaged accounting systems—like today’s QuickBooks for
small businesses, or Microsoft Dynamics for midsize businesses—that were easier to use
and really didn’t require a lot of skills specific to the software. Any competent accountant,
accompanied by a good instructional book, could figure out the software and use it
effectively.
In other words, the investment by big companies made things more accessible to smaller
companies. We see that again and again in the IT industry: Big companies were the first to
invest in large, mainframe computers in the sixties; today, every company has several PCs.
The same has held true for BI: The investment by big companies—in training their end
users, in implementing BI, and so on—has made things much more accessible to end users.
The first BI implementations relied on complex reports, proprietary analysis interfaces,
and so on; today, Web?based dashboards and scorecards are accessible to more users. Add?
ins to familiar applications such as Microsoft Excel put BI analysis in the hands of more
people, with less training. Big companies started with simple, information?dense charts,
like the one shown in Figure 3.1.
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Figure 3.1: Detailed BI chart.
Although this type of chart is still useful today, it took the first BI users a good deal of time
and effort—using specialized skills—to pull this information together into this display.
Today, BI solutions for both enterprises and midsize companies can automatically produce
richer displays, like the sales dashboard shown in Figure 3.2 and the scorecard shown in
Figure 3.3.
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Figure 3.2: Sales dashboard from a BI system.
Figure 3.3: Example scorecard from a BI system.
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Again, the answer to this myth isn’t the same “midsize companies aren’t the same as big
companies” answer I’ve provided up to this point; in this case, specialized end?user skills
are less needed by any BI system—large or small—simply because BI solution developers
have made considerable effort to make things more intuitive, automatic, and approachable.
We’re simply seeing the culmination of more than a decade of continued progress and
evolution.
Now, that’s not to say that big companies don’t have end users who have specialized skills.
If you’re trying to answer entirely new questions using a BI system, then things will
certainly go faster if you’re experienced using your toolset. But in large part, I think the
operative word there is experience. Any intelligent businessperson can gain “specialized
skills” simply by using their BI toolset for ever?more?complex tasks. And “training” for
these end users is also more widely available: Type “BI data analysis” into an online
bookstore’s search engine, and you’ll find hundreds of results.
Myth 3: BI Is Expensive
When I’ve worked with big companies, there was no question that BI was a pricey
proposition. But isn’t everything in a big company expensive? That’s part of the deal of
being “big.” But you can’t use big?company pricing to draw accurate conclusions about BI
costs for midsize companies. Your midsize company didn’t spend as much on, say, a CRM
solution as a gigantic enterprise—why would BI be any different?
Expensive Acquisition Costs
There are two main costs associated with a BI implementation, and one of them is
obviously the cost of the BI software. That is what it is, but a midsize company shouldn’t
expect to pay anything like what a huge enterprise would invest. The vendors that produce
these solutions aren’t stupid; they know perfectly well that they need to offer different
price points for different?sized businesses.
Many of these vendors do so by offering different packages or “editions” of their solutions
and toolsets. Just as Microsoft offers an “Ultimate” edition of their Office productivity suite,
they assume only power users would purchase that edition. Other editions—“Home &
Student,” “Professional,” and so forth—all provide different price points, and functionality
packages, for users with different needs. Today, BI solutions aren’t really that different:
Your midsize company can get the functionality you need in an “edition” that’s much less
expensive than what a big enterprise would need and be willing to pay for.
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Expensive Consulting Services
The other main cost associated with a BI implementation is the hordes of consultants who
will spend months and months researching, planning, implementing, and training before
your BI solution is officially online—in a big company, at least; as I’ve already discussed.
Midsize companies can benefit from prepackaged solutions that require little or no
consulting services. Sure, you’ll probably spend some time speaking with a salesperson and
a technical expert, selecting the right feature set for your needs, and making sure that the
solution you eventually purchase will do what you expect it to. But in many cases, these
prepackaged solutions are prepackaged in every sense of the word: You don’t need to have
a bunch of outsiders come in and install it for you.
Notice I said need. You certainly can have consultants handle your BI implementation, and
there are some valid business reasons for doing so, such as an IT staff that simply doesn’t
have time for the project regardless of whether they have the right skills. But with BI
solutions targeted specifically at the midsize market, you’ll find that even the consulting
expenses—should you choose to use consultants for your implementation—are much
lower than what a big company would expect to pay. You’re looking at weeks of
implementation, not months; you’re dealing with a BI solution that’s intended to be
installed using fewer specialized skills (meaning less?expensive consultants), in less time,
and with less effort.
Don’t Like Negotiating with Vendors?
There’s another thing I find about midsize companies who are exploring BI options: They
hate dickering with salespeople. There’s this feeling, nowadays, that every business
software purchase is going to be like buying a car. You have to haggle over the basic license
pricing, then haggle over the maintenance fees. The salesperson is trying to figure out
exactly how much he can squeeze before you kick him out of the conference room, while
you’re trying to figure out how low you can drive the price before the salesperson gives up
and walks away.
Some businesspeople love negotiating, and there will always be salespeople willing to do
so. But some BI vendors—especially those targeting the midsize market—realize that a lot
of midsize businesspeople don’t have the time or inclination for protracted negotiations.
a pre They’re buying packaged solution, after all; why can’t they pay a prepackaged price?
You’ll find that many BI vendors—again, especially those targeting the midsize market—
provide simple, fixed pricing on their midsize business BI solutions. You’re just buying a
piece of software, not a piece of real estate, so they try to make things easy as well as
affordable.
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Look for a Trial Version
Some BI vendors make their midsize business solutions available as a free
trial download. To me, that says an awful lot about the myths we’ve explored
in this chapter.
A free download means the vendor is pretty sure you’ll be able to set the
software up and use it quickly (before the trial expires), and that you won’t
need specialized consulting services or skills in order to have at least basic
success with the software.
A free download means you’re not expected to have any specialized planning
or design tools, either. A free download is also a sign of software that is, or is
on its way to becoming, somewhat commoditized. That’s not to say that
different vendors don’t have competitive advantages, but rather to say that
they’ve really gotten the software prepackaged, and that obtaining it and
using it shouldn’t be any more complicated that obtaining and using any
other piece of server software.
Plus, a free trial means you can often install and explore the software entirely
on your own, at your own pace, and under your own conditions—you don’t
have to engage in a lengthy sales relationship just to see what the software
looks like, what it does, and how it works. I find that midsize companies—
especially their IT departments—really love being able to test something on
their own, then engage the vendor’s sales organization when they’re ready to
proceed.
Unique Advantages of Midsize Business BI
There are a few things that midsize companies can typically do with BI that is actually a
distinct advantage, giving midsize companies a real benefit that is more difficult for larger
companies to achieve.
In?Memory Analytics
One example is in?memory analysis. As I described in the previous chapter, it’s a growing
trend to use in?memory analytics because they’re fast, can often access more up?to?date (or
even real?time) data more readily, and ultimately because they provide faster answers to
questions. They allow more rapid exploration of “what if” scenarios because you don’t have
to wait for reports or other output to be generated.
The Shortcut Guide to Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies Don Jones
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Big companies can certainly use in?memory analytics, but it can often be expensive for
them (remember, everything a big company does seems to be expensive). Because their
business models deal with so much data, they need a lot of computing power—especially
memory—to make in?memory analytics possible. Some big companies choose to live
without it, while others make the investment. Midsize companies often deal with a smaller
volume of data, meaning in?memory analytics is more immediately approachable.
Computer hardware costs the same no matter how big your company is, and a midsize
company will often need much less of it to enable in?memory analytics—a distinct
advantage given the benefit in?memory analytics can have on business decisions.
Consistency
Big companies are…well, they’re big. They have lots of divisions with different needs, and
that can make BI difficult. People wind up looking at different, customized reports, and
drawing different conclusions from what they see. Another advantage of midsize
companies is that everyone tends to be a little closer to the actual line of business, so
everyone tends to be a little more consistent in their needs. Prepackaged BI solutions
capitalize on this by making consistent BI output available across the business, in the form
of reports, dashboards, and so forth. By getting everyone literally on the same page—
something a midsize company can have an easier time doing—you can make more
consistent business decisions and get everyone moving in the same direction more easily.
What’s Good for Big Business Is Kind of Good for You Too
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that BI isn’t just for big businesses, and that many of the
common perceptions about BI are in fact misperceptions. BI doesn’t have to be expensive,
doesn’t have to involve an army of consultants, and doesn’t require your business to slam
on the brakes and disrupt itself.
But in using terms like “prepackaged,” I may have given you the impression that midsize
business BI offerings are somehow less capable or flexible, and I need to address that.
Although BI solutions targeted at midsize companies often do include a subset of the
features found in a “big company” BI solution, that’s typically because many of the “big
company” BI features are specific to a major enterprise environment and those features
often do require the specialized skills and training midsize businesses are less likely to
have or want to acquire.
That does not mean that prepackaged, midsize business BI solutions are inflexible, “one
size fits all” programs that will force you to change the way you do business in order to “fit”
the solution’s preconceived model. Modern software is, fortunately, much more flexible
than that.
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Business Model Flexibility
Every BI vendor knows that they can’t force you to remodel your business to fit the
vendor’s notions of how your business works. If they tried, you’d simply never by their
product, and they’d fail. The value of BI can only be realized when the BI solution maps
itself to your business model, not the other way around; that’s why large businesses
y have cu typicall stomized BI solutions built for them.
It’s the similarity of midsize businesses that make prepackaged BI solutions feasible;
nobody expects midsize businesses to be identical. BI solutions targeted at the midsize
market can be incredibly flexible, and exploring a solution’s ability to map to your business
model is one of the first things you should do when evaluating solutions for your business.
Advanced Reporting
“Midsize” doesn’t mean “dumbed down.” Midsize business BI solutions typically include
powerful, customizable reporting capabilities. A difference, however, is that these
capabilities are typically exposed in a much friendlier, more intuitive way. BI data is often
stored using a common metadata model that uses standard business terminology rather
than tech?geek?speak, making the BI system more understandable to business users.
Midsize BI solutions typically include lots of built?in reports for the most common business
needs, and these reports can serve as the basis for additional, customized reports that are
shared—through a central repository—across the entire business. As users gain
experience, they can usually begin writing their own custom reports, again sharing these
through the BI solution with the other users in the company.
Data?Everywhere Accessibility
Big businesses were among the first to invest heavily in mobile workforce technologies,
and that investment—like all the others big businesses have made in IT over the decades—
pays off for midsize companies. Having created “data everywhere” capabilities for their big?
company BI solutions, BI vendors moved quickly to bring the functionality to their midsize
business offerings as well.
And any business can certainly benefit from “data everywhere.” The popularity of mobile
devices such as Blackberries and iPhones proves that business people love to be connected
to their businesses all the time—and being connected to your BI solution is no different.
Midsize business BI solutions can provide robust mobile support, including the ability to
access reports, dashboards, and scorecards from mobile Web browsers, dedicated mobile
applications, and even through mobile email (see Figure 3.4).
Note
The continuing improvement to mobile device Web browsers can make even
more BI data available remotely, because—as I’ll discuss next—many BI
systems are relying more and more on Web?based interfaces.
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Figure 3.4: BI solution being used from a mobile device.
Mobile devices aren’t the only part of “data everywhere” that you should look for in a BI
solution. Simply being able to access reports, dashboards, and analysis tools from a home
office, from a hotel room while traveling, or in the conference room of a business partner
are all valuable usage scenarios. Most midsize business IT solutions accommodate these
scenarios by standardizing on powerful, modern Web?based interfaces for much of their
reporting and analysis functionality. Figure 3.5 shows an example of a Web?based
analysis/reporting interface—something that users could access using any Web browser
from any computer in the world.
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Figure 3.5: Webbased interfaces are accessible from anywhere.
Coming Up Next…
The next and final chapter in this book will outline a roadmap for successfully adding BI to
a midsize company. Now that you’ve learned what BI is, how it works, and what isn’t true
about it, you’re ready to see how to bring it into your company. I’ll start by reviewing some
of the main challenges presented by BI, and some ways in which you can address those
challenges in a uniquely midsize company fashion. I’ll look at ways to bring BI into the
company without turning it into a giant, never?ending implementation—and without
breaking the bank. I’ll show you how BI can be made to work within the scope of your
current IT resources, without needing expensive consultants camped out for the next 18
months. Finally, I’ll look at how to do BI in a way that complements, rather than disrupts,
your business environment. I’ll wrap up this book by explaining a few of the things that big
businesses deal with when it comes to BI and how some of those things aren’t good for
midsize companies; I’ll then show you how to avoid them.
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The Shortcut Guide to Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies Don Jones
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Chapter 3: Debunking the Top?Three Myths of Business Intelligence for Midsize Companies
.... ................................................................................................................................................................................... 41
My th 1: BI Can Be Disruptive....................................................................................................................... 41
Specialized Tools and Training Required ......................................................................................... 42
Long Implementation Times ................................................................................................................... 44
Impact on Other Business Processes .................................................................................................. 44
My th 2: BI Requires Specialized Expertise ............................................................................................ 45
Complicated Deployment and Implementation ............................................................................. 46
Specialized Technology Management Skills ..................................................................................... 46
Large?Company Skills Don’t Scale Down ........................................................................................... 47
Specialized End?User Skills ..................................................................................................................... 48
My th 3: BI Is Expensive .................................................................................................................................. 51
Expensive Acquisition Costs ................................................................................................................... 51
Expensive Consulting Services............................................................................................................... 52
Don’t Like Negotiating with Vendors? ................................................................................................ 52
Un ique Advantages of Midsize Business BI ........................................................................................... 53
In?Memory Analytics .................................................................................................................................. 53
Consistency ..................................................................................................................................................... 54
W hat’s Good for Big Business Is Kind of Good for You Too ........................................................... 54
Business Model Flexibility ....................................................................................................................... 55
Advanced Reporting ................................................................................................................................... 55
Data?Everywhere Accessibility .............................................................................................................. 55
Coming Up Next… ............................................................................................................................................. 57
The Shortcut Guide to Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies Don Jones
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The Shortcut Guide to Achieving Business Intelligence in Midsize Companies Don Jones
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Chapter 3: Debunking the Top?Three Myths
of Business Intelligence for Midsize
Companies
There is definitely a pervasive belief that midsize companies simply can’t afford, can’t
handle, or can’t appreciate business intelligence (BI). I even run into executives at midsize
companies who absolutely believe that companies the size of theirs don’t need BI and can’t
benefit from it. It simply isn’t true, and in this chapter, I’m going to play “Mythbusters” and
address the most common misinformation regarding BI as it relates to these companies.
Before I do so, however, I want to get one of the most harmful pieces of misinformation out
of the way, which is this: Midsize companies can’t benefit from BI. That’s patently false; it’s
like saying that midsize companies can’t benefit from customer relationship management
(CRM), accounting software, payroll software, or any other common business tool.
Although it’s true that many of these technology solutions began in extremely large
companies, the fact is that any company can run itself more effectively and efficiently when
these tools are available. It’s also true that the CRM solutions (to take one tool as an
example) used by giant enterprises are built differently than those used by midsize
companies, but that doesn’t mean midsize companies don’t benefit from their particular
versions.
In fact, that’s one of the common themes you’ll find in this chapter: Midsize companies can
and do benefit from the same business tools and capabilities as giant enterprises; those
tools are simply built specifically for the midsize market, and are often easier, less
expensive, and faster to adopt and use than the ones designed for giant enterprises. On to
the myths.
Myth 1: BI Can Be Disruptive
I find that there’s definitely a belief that BI can be disruptive to the business, or at least that
the process of implementing BI can be disruptive. I’ve certainly worked with customers
who have had dedicated project teams work for many, many months at bringing a BI
project to light, and the entire process certainly was disruptive to the business in many
ways. But those were gigantic companies, and many of the problems they dealt with were
ones you’d only run into inside a really large enterprise. Let’s focus on some of the major
aspects of the “disruptive” myth.
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Specialized Tools and Training Required
One objection I hear from midsize companies is that they fear they’ll need to purchase
expensive tools, and undergo extensive training, in order to begin planning and deploying a
BI solution. It’s easy to see where this “myth” comes from—because I can confirm that it
really does happen—inside huge enterprises.
But this is hardly true only with BI projects. Look at nearly any major, enterprise?wide
project in a massive company and you’ll typically see the need for specialized tools,
extensive training, and so on. How many major companies haven’t been through an
exhausting implementation for accounting software? I remember when one past
employer—a 22,000?employee telecommunications division—implemented new financial
software and “specialized tools and training” was an understatement. Horror stories
abound for CRM and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, as well, and I’ve seen
those projects (in one case I got roped into one). There was a ton of specialized tools and
training floating around. But again, that was in a very large company.
Here’s why: Large companies tend to be extremely diversified. They have a lot of things
going on, and they have departments and divisions that operate almost as autonomous
businesses. Simply figuring out what an accounting system needs to look like or how a CRM
solution needs to work requires some very specialized experience. BI is probably an
extreme example of this: A truly enterprise?wide BI system wants to touch every piece of
data the company has so that all that data can play a role in dashboards, reporting, analysis,
“what if” scenarios, and so on. Figuring out where all that data lives, who owns it, how it
works, and how it will be loaded into a data mart or data warehouse are complicated tasks.
The tools used to design the resulting data warehouse are complicated and can be
expensive; the tools used to gather information and requirements are equally specialized.
But that’s in a very large company.
So if “specialized tools and training” are a truth for large enterprises, why are things any
different for a midsize company? I don’t want to come across as suggesting that midsize
companies are somehow more generic than larger enterprises, because that isn’t true. But
the fact is that most midsize companies do operate by a more common set of rules and
practices than large companies do. That isn’t a downside of being a midsize company; it’s a
benefit that most large enterprises often wish they still had. Bear with me for a moment
while I explain.
Start by considering payroll. Most midsize companies have fairly basic and common payroll
needs: You pay employees, you keep track of paid time off, you account for tax
withholdings, and you likely extract some money for benefits. No matter what line of
business you’re in, payroll tends to look the same—so much so that midsize companies
often outsource their payroll entirely or use off?the?shelf software packages that all work
the same way. Midsize companies don’t often have a massive cadre of HR folks, and so
those companies tend to keep their payroll within the realm that can be handled by
outsourced companies or by off?the?shelf payroll packages. When you get to be a huge
company, however, and you build up a huge HR department, it starts to be easier to do
different things with payroll, and so payroll becomes almost a side business within the
enterprise—specialized to the enterprise’s needs.
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What about accounting? Midsize companies tend to follow Generally Acceptable
Accounting Practices (GAAP), and there are numerous off?the?shelf software packages that
provide perfectly acceptable accounting capabilities. Midsize companies do accounting
because they have to, not because they especially enjoy it; therefore, they tend to keep their
accounting practices within the domain that an off?the?shelf (or lightly customized)
accounting package can handle. Sure, midsize companies could start doing complicated
things with accounting, and they’d save some money—but they wouldn’t save enough to
make it worth the extra complication. Large companies, however, can see bigger savings
from more complicated and detailed accounting practices, and so those large companies
invest in specialized software, specialized processes, and so on.
This same trend continues through just about every business tool: Midsize companies could
have the same level of complexity as a giant business, but there’s not a huge return in doing
so. Therefore, midsize companies tend to have back?end systems that all look and work in a
very similar way. Those systems, to a degree, drive (or at least influence) the company’s
business processes and workflows, meaning that most midsize companies look—from a
back?end perspective—if not identical, then at least very similar. There’s an important
truth here that I want to emphasize: Midsize companies often steer clear of very customized
tools and processes because those customizations add complexity that are not justified—to a
midsize company—in terms of their added value.
So how does this affect BI implementations in a midsize company? The reason a massive
enterprise needs specialized BI tools, skills, and training is because every single massive
enterprise looks entirely different from the others. They’ve all adopted their own
customized accounting, payroll, ERP, CRM, and other practices. Designing a BI
infrastructure that utilizes all those data sources will, obviously, be a customized
raining. undertaking and will require specialized skills, tools, and t
A BI solution designed specifically for midsize companies still requires specialized tools and
training, but because midsize companies look so similar on the back?end, those specialized
tools and training come into play once, when the BI solution is initially created by its
vendor. After that, the same pre?made BI solution will—with perhaps some light
customization—be suitable for most midsize companies simply because most midsize
companies are using the business practices and patterns that were taken as assumptions
when the BI solution was created in the first place. In other words, a midsize company can
do without the specialized tools and training simply because a midsize company will tend to
steer clear of the customizations that make the tools and training necessary for an
individual BI deployment.
This is an important concept for debunking many of the BI myths in this chapter, so I
appreciate you bearing with me through this explanation. Let me try and wrap it up with a
non?business analogy, just to make sure I’ve made this important point.
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Consider a NASCAR car. That car requires some expensive, specialized tools, and its driver
requires extensive, specialized training. Why? Those tools and training can bring the
hundredths?of?a?second advantage that means a win. Most normal drivers—like you and
me—don’t need a hundredths?of?a?second advantage, so we make do with cars that don’t
need highly?specialized tools. That means we can very feasibly purchase and own a car
without having any specialized tools or training. The cars we buy are designed to work in a
standardized fashion, even though the cars available to us vary widely in specific features
and capabilities.
That’s basically why midsize companies don’t need specialized tools and training to do a BI
implementation: Pre?packaged solutions that are designed for the way most midsize
companies already work have the specialized tools and training built right in.
Long Implementation Times
I was on a BI project in a 40,000?employee company that took 2 years to complete. No
kidding. We spent the first 9 months on requirements gathering, something like 3 months
designing reports and data warehouses and such, and a year on the actual production
implementation and the inevitable, “oh, can it also do this?” requests from the system’s
users. Why so long? Well, it was a huge company. Data was everywhere, and we had to
reverse?engineer how the company worked in order to build an effective data warehouse.
That’s kind of a worst?case example, but it serves to illustrate the point that BI can take a
very long time. In big companies.
I won’t belabor the point I made in the previous section any further, except to say that
because most midsize companies use similar back?end tools and processes, it doesn’t have
to take nearly as long to implement a usable, effective BI solution in those companies. Sure,
this still isn’t a case where you double?click Setup and are done—but it’s closer to that than
the implementation that giant companies undertake.
In many cases, prepackaged midsize BI solutions are “all in one” packages. You install a
single piece of software and you get a place for a data warehouse, Web server, data?loading
components, in?memory analytics, reporting, dashboarding, and everything else a BI
system needs. You just point it at your existing business data and let it go to work. I’ve seen
implementation times of a few weeks or so, using the existing IT staff. Some companies
might be able to get a BI solution up and running in even less time, especially if the solution
is initially only addressing a single division or department within the company, simply
because that means fewer data connections that have to be made.
Impact on Other Business Processes
I think the first two pieces of this myth pretty much handle this third one. If midsize
companies can implement a prepackaged BI solution in a few weeks, using their existing IT
staff, and without having to offer extensive training to half the company employees, well,
then the BI implementation isn’t going to be very disruptive.
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Most of the “disruption” in a large?scale BI deployment comes from the discovery and
requirements?gathering phases, where BI project team members invade every corner of
the company trying to figure out what data lives where, how everything fits together, and
so on. The IT staff gets distracted with new hardware, complicated new software, complex
data connections, and so forth. With a prepackaged BI solution, there’s simply no
opportunity for any of that to occur: You don’t have a months?long discovery and
requirements?gathering phase, and the IT staff is usually dealing with a single, simpler
piece of integrated software that’s much more within the scope of what they’re used to
dealing with.
Myth 2: BI Requires Specialized Expertise
When I talk to executives in midsize companies, I think the first and loudest objection to BI
is the belief that the company is going to have to hire a cadre of specialized (and expensive)
consultants to make BI happen.
That’s certainly been true in many large companies I’ve worked with, mainly because their
IT staff lacked the specialized skills it takes to plan and implement a data warehouse and
other BI elements. Even after the main implementation is over, consultants and trainers
usually stay around for several months teaching the company’s executives, managers, and
other users how to operate the BI solution—and in some cases, I’ve seen some consultants
turn into full?time employees, specializing in BI and in helping the company’s users take
advantage of the system. But midsize companies don’t need to deal with that.
Here’s another analogy: Consider two companies that build homes for a living. One
company only builds custom homes that cost millions of dollars; the other builds homes in
master?planned communities and charges a few hundred thousand dollars. Both companies
build great?looking homes, and they use many of the same raw materials. They’re also held
to the same building codes and other practices, and they both believe in creating a high?
quality product.
When the first company begins architecting a new home, a lot of specialized tools are
required. Architects have to draw every aspect of the new home, and engineers have to
figure out the roof structure, load?bearing capacities, and so on. Because their customers
are paying huge sums of money, every job is completely customized, and so the architects
and engineers get involved every time. The company’s customers all lead wildly different
lifestyles: Some want in?home recording studios, others want massive multi?car garages,
and so on, so all that customization is really a big part of the business.
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The second company’s customers don’t want to spend millions on a home, though. So the
second company offers a few pre?designed floor plans, all of which have been architected
and engineered in advance. These aren’t cookie?cutter homes; the builder understands
which walls are load?bearing, for example, and can do minor customizations that don’t
affect the pre?engineered structural integrity. This company’s customers don’t demand a
high level of customization—for example, they simply want to pick out their cabinets and
countertops. Because these customers don’t want or need designed?from?scratch homes,
they save themselves the expense of an architect and engineer. It’s not that those
specialized skills were never needed; they were simply only needed once, and the results of
their work will be used many times, by many different customers.
This “one time engagement” of specialized expertise is what debunks this myth for midsize
businesses. Let’s look at some specifics.
Complicated Deployment and Implementation
Although a pre?engineered midsize business BI solution isn’t exactly as simple as “double
click Setup,” it is, as I’ve already mentioned, not a lot more complicated than that. At least,
it’s certainly not as complicated as designing a whole new BI solution entirely from scratch.
Deployment and implementation does start with double?clicking Setup, often installing a
completely integrated, one?piece (or few?piece) solution that contains pre?built BI
components such as a data warehouse, reports, and so on. Deployment and implementation
is about the same complexity level as deploying and implementing any other server
software, such as a database server or messaging server.
The most complex part of the implementation is often the part where you connect the BI
system to your other business systems. Typically, prepackaged BI solutions offer “wizards”
and other tools to help make this process easier. Prepackaged solutions may even come
with built?in “connectors” for common midsize business back?end systems, such as
accounting software, ERP systems, CRM systems, and so forth. So although this isn’t a “no
brainer” part of the BI solution deployment, it’s certainly something that the average IT
staff can handle—without highly?specialized skills.
Specialized Technology Management Skills
There’s also a concern that midsize companies don’t have the necessary skills in their
existing IT staff to manage a BI solution on an ongoing basis. Fortunately, that’s not
generally a concern. In fact, even some extremely large enterprises get away with very little
in the way of specialized technology management skills.
There are two aspects of managing a deployed BI solution. The first is the simple, basic,
day?to?day operational stuff: keeping databases tuned for performance, backing up servers,
keeping servers properly patched and updated, and so forth. This kind of maintenance is
something any normal IT staffer should be able to handle; the most complicated
maintenance task—database tuning—is frankly something that can be more or less set up
once and then scheduled to run automatically; prepackaged BI solutions typically have this
built?in and are advertised as “self?maintaining.”
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The other aspect of BI solution management is ongoing customization. Big companies
change their patterns and practices over time, evolving their business. Some large
enterprises make sweeping changes fairly often—and feel the operational pain when all
their systems, including accounting, ERP, CRM, and so on, need to be updated to reflect the
changes in the business model. For those companies, having specialized IT skills on staff is
a cost of doing business. Plenty of huge companies, though, make relatively few changes to
their basic patterns and practices. They don’t want to re?architect their accounting records,
re?design their CRM solutions, or re?design their BI solution. So those companies, even
though they’re quite large, often do without specialized BI skills on staff. Midsize
companies also tend to avoid the kind of complex changes that require sweeping changes
to their back?end systems. Remember, midsize companies often steer clear of very
customized tools and processes because those customizations add complexity that is not
justified—to a midsize company—in terms of its added value.
Large?Company Skills Don’t Scale Down
Some midsize companies are fortunate enough to have BI experience on?staff. Typically, it’s
in the form of an IT staffer who perhaps worked on a BI project in a previous job—often
with a large company. Or it might be an executive or manager who used BI solutions in past
jobs. The fear, however, is that those large?company skills won’t scale down to the midsize
business, meaning those existing skills are at best useless, and are at worst dangerous, as
they will drive big?company decisions that aren’t appropriate for a midsize business.
In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve spent a lot of time writing
about prepackaged BI solutions for midsize companies; it would be very easy to assume
that “prepackaged” somehow means “different” or “less capable.” Not so. Prepackaged BI
solutions are BI solutions; they work in much the same way that big companies’ BI
solutions work, and past experience with any BI system will make someone more
comfortable with any other BI system. “Prepackaged” simply means “assembled for you”
cust . rather than “build it yourself;” om?built BI solutions are custom, not necessarily better
So large?company skills don’t need to “scale down” to midsize businesses; those skills are
valuable exactly as they are.
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Specialized End?User Skills
Do BI systems require specialized end?user skills? Well…yes and no. This isn’t a case where
I’m going to tell you—again—that midsize companies simply don’t need the same skills as
big companies. As I outlined in the previous section, big?company BI skills work well in a
midsize environment; that suggests that any BI implementation will need the same skills,
so someone who doesn’t have those skills will need training. Right?
Again, yes and no. Let me fall back to the example of accounting systems. In the very
earliest days of computerized accounting systems, computerized accounting was only done
by big businesses. A lot of specialized skills were involved; midsize businesses stuck with
pencil?and?paper ledgers. As more and more big businesses used those accounting systems,
however, the folks who created those systems found ways to make them easier to use.
Eventually, that resulted in prepackaged accounting systems—like today’s QuickBooks for
small businesses, or Microsoft Dynamics for midsize businesses—that were easier to use
and really didn’t require a lot of skills specific to the software. Any competent accountant,
accompanied by a good instructional book, could figure out the software and use it
effectively.
In other words, the investment by big companies made things more accessible to smaller
companies. We see that again and again in the IT industry: Big companies were the first to
invest in large, mainframe computers in the sixties; today, every company has several PCs.
The same has held true for BI: The investment by big companies—in training their end
users, in implementing BI, and so on—has made things much more accessible to end users.
The first BI implementations relied on complex reports, proprietary analysis interfaces,
and so on; today, Web?based dashboards and scorecards are accessible to more users. Add?
ins to familiar applications such as Microsoft Excel put BI analysis in the hands of more
people, with less training. Big companies started with simple, information?dense charts,
like the one shown in Figure 3.1.
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Figure 3.1: Detailed BI chart.
Although this type of chart is still useful today, it took the first BI users a good deal of time
and effort—using specialized skills—to pull this information together into this display.
Today, BI solutions for both enterprises and midsize companies can automatically produce
richer displays, like the sales dashboard shown in Figure 3.2 and the scorecard shown in
Figure 3.3.
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Figure 3.2: Sales dashboard from a BI system.
Figure 3.3: Example scorecard from a BI system.
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Again, the answer to this myth isn’t the same “midsize companies aren’t the same as big
companies” answer I’ve provided up to this point; in this case, specialized end?user skills
are less needed by any BI system—large or small—simply because BI solution developers
have made considerable effort to make things more intuitive, automatic, and approachable.
We’re simply seeing the culmination of more than a decade of continued progress and
evolution.
Now, that’s not to say that big companies don’t have end users who have specialized skills.
If you’re trying to answer entirely new questions using a BI system, then things will
certainly go faster if you’re experienced using your toolset. But in large part, I think the
operative word there is experience. Any intelligent businessperson can gain “specialized
skills” simply by using their BI toolset for ever?more?complex tasks. And “training” for
these end users is also more widely available: Type “BI data analysis” into an online
bookstore’s search engine, and you’ll find hundreds of results.
Myth 3: BI Is Expensive
When I’ve worked with big companies, there was no question that BI was a pricey
proposition. But isn’t everything in a big company expensive? That’s part of the deal of
being “big.” But you can’t use big?company pricing to draw accurate conclusions about BI
costs for midsize companies. Your midsize company didn’t spend as much on, say, a CRM
solution as a gigantic enterprise—why would BI be any different?
Expensive Acquisition Costs
There are two main costs associated with a BI implementation, and one of them is
obviously the cost of the BI software. That is what it is, but a midsize company shouldn’t
expect to pay anything like what a huge enterprise would invest. The vendors that produce
these solutions aren’t stupid; they know perfectly well that they need to offer different
price points for different?sized businesses.
Many of these vendors do so by offering different packages or “editions” of their solutions
and toolsets. Just as Microsoft offers an “Ultimate” edition of their Office productivity suite,
they assume only power users would purchase that edition. Other editions—“Home &
Student,” “Professional,” and so forth—all provide different price points, and functionality
packages, for users with different needs. Today, BI solutions aren’t really that different:
Your midsize company can get the functionality you need in an “edition” that’s much less
expensive than what a big enterprise would need and be willing to pay for.
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Expensive Consulting Services
The other main cost associated with a BI implementation is the hordes of consultants who
will spend months and months researching, planning, implementing, and training before
your BI solution is officially online—in a big company, at least; as I’ve already discussed.
Midsize companies can benefit from prepackaged solutions that require little or no
consulting services. Sure, you’ll probably spend some time speaking with a salesperson and
a technical expert, selecting the right feature set for your needs, and making sure that the
solution you eventually purchase will do what you expect it to. But in many cases, these
prepackaged solutions are prepackaged in every sense of the word: You don’t need to have
a bunch of outsiders come in and install it for you.
Notice I said need. You certainly can have consultants handle your BI implementation, and
there are some valid business reasons for doing so, such as an IT staff that simply doesn’t
have time for the project regardless of whether they have the right skills. But with BI
solutions targeted specifically at the midsize market, you’ll find that even the consulting
expenses—should you choose to use consultants for your implementation—are much
lower than what a big company would expect to pay. You’re looking at weeks of
implementation, not months; you’re dealing with a BI solution that’s intended to be
installed using fewer specialized skills (meaning less?expensive consultants), in less time,
and with less effort.
Don’t Like Negotiating with Vendors?
There’s another thing I find about midsize companies who are exploring BI options: They
hate dickering with salespeople. There’s this feeling, nowadays, that every business
software purchase is going to be like buying a car. You have to haggle over the basic license
pricing, then haggle over the maintenance fees. The salesperson is trying to figure out
exactly how much he can squeeze before you kick him out of the conference room, while
you’re trying to figure out how low you can drive the price before the salesperson gives up
and walks away.
Some businesspeople love negotiating, and there will always be salespeople willing to do
so. But some BI vendors—especially those targeting the midsize market—realize that a lot
of midsize businesspeople don’t have the time or inclination for protracted negotiations.
a pre They’re buying packaged solution, after all; why can’t they pay a prepackaged price?
You’ll find that many BI vendors—again, especially those targeting the midsize market—
provide simple, fixed pricing on their midsize business BI solutions. You’re just buying a
piece of software, not a piece of real estate, so they try to make things easy as well as
affordable.
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Look for a Trial Version
Some BI vendors make their midsize business solutions available as a free
trial download. To me, that says an awful lot about the myths we’ve explored
in this chapter.
A free download means the vendor is pretty sure you’ll be able to set the
software up and use it quickly (before the trial expires), and that you won’t
need specialized consulting services or skills in order to have at least basic
success with the software.
A free download means you’re not expected to have any specialized planning
or design tools, either. A free download is also a sign of software that is, or is
on its way to becoming, somewhat commoditized. That’s not to say that
different vendors don’t have competitive advantages, but rather to say that
they’ve really gotten the software prepackaged, and that obtaining it and
using it shouldn’t be any more complicated that obtaining and using any
other piece of server software.
Plus, a free trial means you can often install and explore the software entirely
on your own, at your own pace, and under your own conditions—you don’t
have to engage in a lengthy sales relationship just to see what the software
looks like, what it does, and how it works. I find that midsize companies—
especially their IT departments—really love being able to test something on
their own, then engage the vendor’s sales organization when they’re ready to
proceed.
Unique Advantages of Midsize Business BI
There are a few things that midsize companies can typically do with BI that is actually a
distinct advantage, giving midsize companies a real benefit that is more difficult for larger
companies to achieve.
In?Memory Analytics
One example is in?memory analysis. As I described in the previous chapter, it’s a growing
trend to use in?memory analytics because they’re fast, can often access more up?to?date (or
even real?time) data more readily, and ultimately because they provide faster answers to
questions. They allow more rapid exploration of “what if” scenarios because you don’t have
to wait for reports or other output to be generated.
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Big companies can certainly use in?memory analytics, but it can often be expensive for
them (remember, everything a big company does seems to be expensive). Because their
business models deal with so much data, they need a lot of computing power—especially
memory—to make in?memory analytics possible. Some big companies choose to live
without it, while others make the investment. Midsize companies often deal with a smaller
volume of data, meaning in?memory analytics is more immediately approachable.
Computer hardware costs the same no matter how big your company is, and a midsize
company will often need much less of it to enable in?memory analytics—a distinct
advantage given the benefit in?memory analytics can have on business decisions.
Consistency
Big companies are…well, they’re big. They have lots of divisions with different needs, and
that can make BI difficult. People wind up looking at different, customized reports, and
drawing different conclusions from what they see. Another advantage of midsize
companies is that everyone tends to be a little closer to the actual line of business, so
everyone tends to be a little more consistent in their needs. Prepackaged BI solutions
capitalize on this by making consistent BI output available across the business, in the form
of reports, dashboards, and so forth. By getting everyone literally on the same page—
something a midsize company can have an easier time doing—you can make more
consistent business decisions and get everyone moving in the same direction more easily.
What’s Good for Big Business Is Kind of Good for You Too
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that BI isn’t just for big businesses, and that many of the
common perceptions about BI are in fact misperceptions. BI doesn’t have to be expensive,
doesn’t have to involve an army of consultants, and doesn’t require your business to slam
on the brakes and disrupt itself.
But in using terms like “prepackaged,” I may have given you the impression that midsize
business BI offerings are somehow less capable or flexible, and I need to address that.
Although BI solutions targeted at midsize companies often do include a subset of the
features found in a “big company” BI solution, that’s typically because many of the “big
company” BI features are specific to a major enterprise environment and those features
often do require the specialized skills and training midsize businesses are less likely to
have or want to acquire.
That does not mean that prepackaged, midsize business BI solutions are inflexible, “one
size fits all” programs that will force you to change the way you do business in order to “fit”
the solution’s preconceived model. Modern software is, fortunately, much more flexible
than that.
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Business Model Flexibility
Every BI vendor knows that they can’t force you to remodel your business to fit the
vendor’s notions of how your business works. If they tried, you’d simply never by their
product, and they’d fail. The value of BI can only be realized when the BI solution maps
itself to your business model, not the other way around; that’s why large businesses
y have cu typicall stomized BI solutions built for them.
It’s the similarity of midsize businesses that make prepackaged BI solutions feasible;
nobody expects midsize businesses to be identical. BI solutions targeted at the midsize
market can be incredibly flexible, and exploring a solution’s ability to map to your business
model is one of the first things you should do when evaluating solutions for your business.
Advanced Reporting
“Midsize” doesn’t mean “dumbed down.” Midsize business BI solutions typically include
powerful, customizable reporting capabilities. A difference, however, is that these
capabilities are typically exposed in a much friendlier, more intuitive way. BI data is often
stored using a common metadata model that uses standard business terminology rather
than tech?geek?speak, making the BI system more understandable to business users.
Midsize BI solutions typically include lots of built?in reports for the most common business
needs, and these reports can serve as the basis for additional, customized reports that are
shared—through a central repository—across the entire business. As users gain
experience, they can usually begin writing their own custom reports, again sharing these
through the BI solution with the other users in the company.
Data?Everywhere Accessibility
Big businesses were among the first to invest heavily in mobile workforce technologies,
and that investment—like all the others big businesses have made in IT over the decades—
pays off for midsize companies. Having created “data everywhere” capabilities for their big?
company BI solutions, BI vendors moved quickly to bring the functionality to their midsize
business offerings as well.
And any business can certainly benefit from “data everywhere.” The popularity of mobile
devices such as Blackberries and iPhones proves that business people love to be connected
to their businesses all the time—and being connected to your BI solution is no different.
Midsize business BI solutions can provide robust mobile support, including the ability to
access reports, dashboards, and scorecards from mobile Web browsers, dedicated mobile
applications, and even through mobile email (see Figure 3.4).
Note
The continuing improvement to mobile device Web browsers can make even
more BI data available remotely, because—as I’ll discuss next—many BI
systems are relying more and more on Web?based interfaces.
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Figure 3.4: BI solution being used from a mobile device.
Mobile devices aren’t the only part of “data everywhere” that you should look for in a BI
solution. Simply being able to access reports, dashboards, and analysis tools from a home
office, from a hotel room while traveling, or in the conference room of a business partner
are all valuable usage scenarios. Most midsize business IT solutions accommodate these
scenarios by standardizing on powerful, modern Web?based interfaces for much of their
reporting and analysis functionality. Figure 3.5 shows an example of a Web?based
analysis/reporting interface—something that users could access using any Web browser
from any computer in the world.
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Figure 3.5: Webbased interfaces are accessible from anywhere.
Coming Up Next…
The next and final chapter in this book will outline a roadmap for successfully adding BI to
a midsize company. Now that you’ve learned what BI is, how it works, and what isn’t true
about it, you’re ready to see how to bring it into your company. I’ll start by reviewing some
of the main challenges presented by BI, and some ways in which you can address those
challenges in a uniquely midsize company fashion. I’ll look at ways to bring BI into the
company without turning it into a giant, never?ending implementation—and without
breaking the bank. I’ll show you how BI can be made to work within the scope of your
current IT resources, without needing expensive consultants camped out for the next 18
months. Finally, I’ll look at how to do BI in a way that complements, rather than disrupts,
your business environment. I’ll wrap up this book by explaining a few of the things that big
businesses deal with when it comes to BI and how some of those things aren’t good for
midsize companies; I’ll then show you how to avoid them.
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