BI Hierarchy of Needs for Growing Businesses

Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Warehousing are mature technologies that have been adopted by organizations to varying levels of success. BI initiatives, however, vary in outcomes, ranging from providing a strategic capability to yet another IT application with a handful of users. More than half of all BI Initiatives fail, even though there are many tools, technologies, blogs, educational material, and advice available on the internet. Thus, for startups and small businesses, investing in a BI capability is often a decision that is accompanied by uncertainty and risk even though the technology itself appears to be straightforward.

Resources to help formulating a BI Strategy, or even providing a framework to think about one are surprisingly scant. Literature on best practices and implementing BI elements, such as data warehouses, are normative: they discuss on how things should be, as opposed to breaking the steps down into achievable or relatable phases. This whitepaper aims to discuss a small and growing business’ data and reporting needs both in the short-term as well as in the longer-term. It hopes to impart a way to evaluate needs and thus, tools, processes, and value offered by different vendors in the market.

This whitepaper is not meant to endorse any specific product, and is purely aimed at providing thought leadership to educate decision makers.