In this article, we discuss everything you need to know about business intelligence implementations and why Discern is different.
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) refers to the tools, technologies, and processes that organizations use to collect, store, and analyze data to support better business decision-making.
BI can help organizations identify trends, spot opportunities, and address problems across a range of business functions.
What are the steps to implementing a business intelligence strategy?
Implementing a BI solution can be a complex and time-consuming process and typically involves the following steps:
- Define the business problem or opportunity: This might involve identifying areas where the organization is struggling to make informed decisions or identifying areas where the organization could improve its performance.
- Determine the data and information requirements: This could include identifying the specific data sources that will be used, the types of data that will be needed, and the specific questions or problems that the BI solution will need to address.
- Select and implement the BI technology: For example, setting up a data warehouse, selecting and configuring BI tools, and developing custom analytics and reporting solutions.
- Clean and prepare the data: You’ll want to identify and correct errors in the data, standardize data formats, and transform the data into a format suitable for analysis.
- Analyze and visualize the data: Next you’ll create dashboards, reports, and charts that help decision-makers understand the data and identify trends and patterns.
- Communicate and act on the insights: The final step in implementing a BI solution is to communicate the insights and recommendations that are derived from the data to the appropriate stakeholders and to take action based on those insights.
How long does it typically take to implement a business intelligence solution?
Time to value for a BI tool can vary significantly depending on the complexity of the solution, the amount and quality of the data, and the resources available for the project.
For example, a simple BI solution that involves the use of off-the-shelf software and a small amount of data might be implemented relatively quickly, perhaps in a few months. On the other hand, a more complex BI solution that involves custom software development, large amounts of data, and significant data preparation and transformation work could take several months or even years to implement.
What are the most common mistakes companies make when implementing a BI solution?
There are several common mistakes that organizations can make when implementing a business intelligence (BI) solution. Some of the biggest mistakes include:
- Lack of clear goals and objectives can lead to delays and cost overruns.
- Inadequate data preparation can lead to inaccurate or misleading insights.
- Insufficient resource allocation can prevent the project from being completed the on time and within budget.
- Lack of user buy-in will limit adoption and minimize the impact of the BI insights on the organization’s efficiency and performance.
- Over-customization can also add complexity and cost to the project, making it difficult to maintain and upgrade in the future.
How is Discern different from typical Business Intelligence solutions?
- Time to Value: Discern has automated the majority of out-of-the-box implementation requirements, allowing deployments to be focused on bespoke customization and nuances. As a result, Discern can get clients up and running in a fraction of the time—think 1-4 weeks, at a fraction of the cost of typical BI implementations.
- Best Practice Dashboards: By partnering with industry-leading private equity and venture capital firms, Discern surfaces the metrics and trends most important to management teams, boards, and investors. Rather than starting from scratch, Discern empowers clients to focus on the information that matters most to driving efficiency, profitability and growth.
- Transformation & Analytics Expertise: Discern has incredible domain knowledge when it comes to CRM, ERP, and other function-specific SaaS platforms. With Discern, the entire data transformation and analytics process is automated and comes standard for every implementation.
- No Code Platform: The platform allows business users to launch custom, calculated KPIs without the need for technology and development personnel involvements.
- Cost and Resource Saving: Discern’s all-in-one business intelligence platform ingests and analyzes data from SaaS platforms, data warehouses and spreadsheets, reducing the need for expensive data engineers and database developers, ETL solutions, and business intelligence licenses. As a result, the cost of ownership for Discern is a fraction of the cost of BI ownership.
Most B2B technology and data companies care about monitoring the same KPIs and operational metrics, yet they each spend years and millions of dollars identifying goals and implementing the tools and processes required to establish enterprise-wide company analytics and reporting. Discern solves for the time and cost burdens for these companies.
