This is the number one priority for your Business Intelligence tool

Business Intelligence is about analyzing lots of data to help you take the best decisions for your organization. That can be quite complicated. Out of all the available solutions, it is hard to say what the best BI tool is, but the top priority for BI tools is the same for everyone.

User-friendliness is a must

Do not focus solely on features and functionalities. More is not necessarily better. Price should also not be decisive, because an expensive, yet effective tool is a better purchase than a cheap, but useless tool. Your highest priority is that the BI solution is USER-FRIENDLY. Because for BI goes, more than for other applications: if it is too complicated, it will never work. When it comes to a Business Intelligence solution, nobody wants hours of training, thick manuals and having to call to the support desk with your questions. Then you rather not use BI. Your tool must be easy to access for everyone. Users want to see the information they are looking for quickly and easily, if not; they drop out.

Does that mean the Business Intelligence solution must be very basic?

No, definitely not. When it comes to the technique, it may, or perhaps must be, a very advanced application. And some BI specialists will be very happy with that and enjoy deploying the tool with maximum value for the organization. But for the "regular" user it must be kept very simple. Consider a manager who occasionally consults the BI tool to monitor a few KPIs - he or she does not want to waste valuable time on how the tool works. Or think of all those employees who are less skilled with computers and software - if the BI tool is complicated, they will never use it.

"Users want to see the information they are looking for quickly and easily, if not; they drop out."

Useful help with selection

Research firm Gartner is a leading authority when it comes to assessing the quality of IT solutions. Including Business Intelligence. In their assessment they look at how complete the BI vision of a company is and to what extent they have been able to execute this vision in a BI application. At the top right of the Gartner quadrant you will find the leaders; their vision on BI is complete and they have executed this into a powerful and user-friendly application. Of course, BI is continuously evolving and the capabilities of parties and solutions to deal with this change as well. That is why Gartner carries out this research every year. More information about Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence of 2019 can be found here.

Want to try how it works?

Do you want to try for yourself what a Business Intelligence tool is and how it works? You will find a demo on our Business Intelligence page. Not one to watch or for which you need our instructions, but an interactive demo that you can try without instructions. We would love to hear what you think of it!

Bjorn Schouten is Business Intelligence Consultant at Dysel and helps customers to turn data into valuable management information.