Say No! To a Lifetime of Business Intelligence (BI) Migration

by | Apr 17, 2013 | Business Intelligence (BI), Ms Excel, PowerOLAP

While a recent report by Gartner revealed that; Business Intelligence and Analytics are the fastest growing software market, there is still the technology migration scare that pushes many end users away from Business Intelligence tools. Forcing end users to stick to what they know—good old Spreadsheets. The truth about Business Intelligence technology still remains: non-technical users want simplicity, flexibility and don’t want to be stuck spending time figuring out the technical ins and outs of their new BI tool. With that been said, many users who use Excel and other spreadsheet applications do realize the potential benefits that could be derived  from the features that Business Intelligence tools offer such as; predictive analysis, instant reporting, live connection to transactional data, consolidation etc.

What is Business Intelligence Migration?

Business Intelligence Migration is all the steps and processes that a business and/or users have to go through in order to get their Business Intelligence software correctly configured and working within an organization. This process varies in time from one organization to the other dependent on different factors including; number of users, type of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System in place if any, and of course, the technical apt of users. When Business Intelligence tools do not integrate with familiar end user tools such as spreadsheets, businesses often face what I would call Business Intelligence Migration-Limbo: where some users become versed in using the new software while others are either unwilling or unable to come up to speed with using the new solution. Essentially, this creates a division between users who are actively using the new BI solution and those who are not. The dangers of being at this stage include; the inability to easily control data, ensure data security and accuracy.

Simple Fix to this problem:

Get a Business Intelligence tool that works with your Spreadsheets NOT AGAINST IT. Products such as PowerOLAP and OLATION give users the flexibility that they desire by allowing them to use Spreadsheet applications like Excel, while offering the many benefits of Business Intelligence tools. No one wants to make their lives more complicated by endless Business Intelligence migrations so why bother?   Blog Contributed By: Hellen Oti-Yeboah  Marketing Associate, PARIS Technologies. Related Article: Debunking 4 Common Business Intelligence Myths Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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