Choosing the Right BI Platform

In any business environment the critical mission is staying ahead of your competitors and ahead of the economy, choosing the right business intelligence (BI) platform can give you the competitive advantage you need for success. Taking time up front to evaluate your current environment and to define your goals and objectives are key in identifying a solution that will best fit your organization's needs and ensure long term success.

 Below are 3 statements about people and technology that we must always remember.

a. It’s always difficult to come up with the right BI tools that satisfy everybody within an organisation. This could be a result of many factors, that includes Self-service BI, and sometimes as human beings we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.

b. Most importantly, we must realise that technology is nothing, what is important is that you have faith in people, that they are basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them.

c. Even if one’s intentions are good, the wrong tool for the wrong task is the wrong tool for the wrong task. 

 What I am going to put forward, is not about software characteristics, this is a checklist for the Right BI platform or the Right BI tool. The onus remain yours to choose which tool you want to adopt.

Choose the right BI platform:    Evaluation Criteria List

◾Reporting, dashboarding & analysis in one package

◾Zero foot-print (web-based)

◾Role based reporting & dashboarding

◾Support for Mobile BI

◾Communication facilities (notes/comments/likes)

◾Real-time aware

◾Basket, advanced & predictive analysis

◾Usability (ease-of-use, ease-of-learning)

◾Portal integration

◾Designs (insights) are reusable across BI applications

◾Self-Service