Business, as usual, is not always the best approach, particularly when you rely on traditional IT resources that can slow your progress. Although business intelligence (BI) has influence in many organizations, its complex and time-consuming process of information gathering is being challenged by self-reporting access to data. It is important for you to reconsider the BI and analytics tools you are using today as you prepare for future, data-driven needs.
The Move Away from BI
The old way of gathering, analyzing, and reporting data through BI is not only retrospective but also passive in its presentation. Many end users find it difficult to interpret the complex analytic functions without access to tools for generating easy-to-use outputs. Similarly, BI can hinder report creation due to multiple databases that require manual conversions. The orientation of BI is predominantly historical, offering a less predictive strategy for analyzing data. Instead of informing you of future outcomes based on statistical measures, BI focuses on gathering aggregated data rather than problem-solving.
The Progression to Self- Service Analytics
Using data for proactive purposes that provide for interactive presentations at every organizational level, self-service analytics improve the speed and function of decision-making. Nowadays, due to self-service analytics, you can skip requests for reports and instantly access them for decisions. The user and IT department need less time to collaborate information flow, resulting in a reduction of overhead.
Easing IT constraints, self-service analytics offer many benefits, including:
- Metadata instead of disparate data sources
- No coding approach for general use
- Increased mobility for access
- Faster collaboration and information sharing
- Use of an assortment of operational tools
As a user, you have quicker and easier access to reports while benefiting from visual data. Unlimited by the reactive nature of BI, your problem-solving efforts will be intensified by optimization and forecasting. You will conduct what-if scenarios to enable effective decision-making without depending too heavily on IT.
Lastly, self-service analytics puts control into the hands of its users, honing their abilities to strategize and problem-solve. Through data exploration and visualization, organizations are leveraging self-service analytics to make powerful decisions in flexible business frameworks, which support planning, research, and management.
