Are you really different?

Business Intelligence vendors create their products as 'toolsets' - platforms that let you deal with the unique reporting requirements of your business. Instead of providing a collection of fixed reports and metrics, they provide an opportunity for you to create your own reporting and metrics environment from scratch. That way, all of the reports are specific to your business.

So what's the problem with this? Well for starters, not every leader of an SMB has a clear understanding of what Business Intelligence can do for them. Though they really know their business operationally, they're not always sure what to measure and how it can be used to improve things. I don't know how many times I've met with prospective clients who have asked very early on for some samples of what other businesses are doing. They're really looking for a way to jumpstart the process.

Here's the question then - When considering a BI approach for your business, how important is it to have something that is ready out-of-the-box? Is it better to buy a toolset that let's you build from the ground up, or would it be preferable to have some content that is ready to go right away?

My belief is that, though all companies have their own unique aspects, there are also a lot of similarities. And with these similarities, there are a lot of standard metrics to monitor and analyses to be performed. Regardless of the business model, there will be some form of 'revenue', some 'customers' and obviously some 'vendors' (and lots of other similarities). It's probably safe to say that most businesses share about an 80% commonality. Wouldn't it be good if the 80% was ready out of the box? That way you could use the time saved to focus on addressing the other 20% more effectively.

What's it all about, anyway?

How do you define Business Intelligence?

For the last few years, I've been working with businesses across North America, as part of Business Intelligence (BI) projects and deployments. And yet I have always struggled to concisely explain just what BI is. But I think I'm getting close.

Business Intelligence is a great addition to the technology lexicon - it makes those of us involved in setting up this stuff feel like we're doing something new and revolutionary! But the simple truth is that Business Intelligence isn't really new; it's really just about something we chose to ignore.

Anyone can make a decision. But to make a good decision, we really want/need information. GOOD information. Timely, relevant information. And that's what BI is all about. Information.

So when someone asks me what I do, from now on my answer is going to be that I solve information problems. It doesn't sound so pretentious, and I think it's pretty accurate.

What this is about...

A lot of large software vendors are promoting themselves as providing Business Intelligence solutions appropriate for SMBs, but here's my issue - while the solutions are generally functionally and financially appropriate for the upper end of this market space, the reality is that they are not generally an affordable option at the lower end.

For clarification, I better share my definition of the market we're talking about.

Generally (and obviously with exceptions), when I think of mid-sized businesses, I'm thinking of those from about $25 million per annum revenue, and going up to about $350M in annual revenue. I realize that annual revenue is a fairly arbitrary defining characteristic, however people like having boundaries, so there you have it. Under $25 million, generally there is not the scope of business operations to warrant much in the way of sophisticated BI, and over $350M, realistically we're no longer dealing with a mid-sized business.

As the president of a consulting firm implementing BI solutions in the mid-market, I'm hoping I can use my experience to give some insight into viable BI for smaller businesses, and how to get value from appropriate solutions.

And yes, I'll also share my opinion about industry trends and changes for those who care to read them :)

Stay tuned!