5 Questions To Help You Choose The Right Business Intelligence For Your Business

Business Intelligence, is a concept that defines the practice of strategically using company data from the collection, storage, treatment, analysis and application of data so that corporate decisions are more assertive. 

Today, BI is essential to define a strategy to set up an action or campaign. However, a good BI helps in decision-making and organizes information, developing perceptions and understanding. Which director wouldn’t want to know if a specific action to be taken will have positive effects and even carry out a more assertive analysis of the future of their business? 

It is vital to process this vast amount of information in an increasingly computerized scenario to display it readable and straightforwardly. Check out in this article 5 questions you should ask when choosing a BI system.

Does Your Software Vendor Develop An ERP With Integrated BI, Or Is The BI Third-Party?

This question is crucial as sometimes dealing with more than one supplier can be stressful for you. Beware of pitfalls when seeking information and requesting a more elaborate consultation. You may end up hearing that company X is responsible when, in fact, it is company Y. Therefore, an important tip is to look for ERP vendors that develop their own integrated BI system. 

What Are The System’s Characteristics, And How Is The Information Presented? 

Some tools work with these types of presentation: Drill Down, Drill Up, Drill Across, Slice and Dice, Minimum and Maximum.  Drill Down, Up, and Across refer to the detail and granularity of the information. Drill Down will characterize by increasing the level of information detail and decreasing the system’s degree of division. For example, the sales result for a particular company, from the point of view of VIP customers, is 50 thousand and, when performing the Drill Down, the user will have access to details of values ​​up to the sum of 50 thousand. 

Drill Up is the opposite of Drill Down and will characterize when the user increases the granularity, decreasing the level of detail of the information – one way is to group it by columns. Drill Across occurs when the user skips an intermediate level within the same dimension. For example, the time dimension is year, semester, quarter, month and day. The user will perform a Drill Across from year straight to semester or month.

Slice and Dice is one of the main features of a Business Intelligence tool. It is used to modify the position of information and change rows by columns, making it easier for users to understand and rotate the cube whenever necessary.

Finally, the Minimum and Maximum indicate situations about the minimum and maximum values ​​in a cube, based on conditions involving objects and variables. It can highlight so that each selection can have a different color, making the cube stand out and increasing the analyst’s view. It is essential to present to the decision-maker the highest and lowest values ​​in the same cube.

Does The Business Intelligence Tool Have Graphics?

A BI cube can present you with a lot of information, but without graphics to help, it’s difficult to understand what a row or column means. A well-presented chart is the most effective way to determine whether the result is positive or negative due to your growth. Look for tools that allow you to display values ​​in various chart categories. The most important are: pie or pie, columns, bars and area. Critical care is to observe if the graph will export or print.

Can Sorting And Filtering Be Done Without Reloading The Query?

Needing to reload queries can be a problem as the processing will do again. Look for Business Intelligencesystems that allow data sorting and screen filters without filling the question. It will enable agility and time optimization.

What Are The Calculation Methods? 

A common mistake in companies that provide Business Intelligence systems. To insert the responsibility of the calculation forms outside the cube and inside the query. For example, the BI Analyst is the one who defines the type of summation, with no option available to the end-user. Find out if your supplier allows you to consult new forms of calculation in addition to the addition operation. Ideally, the manager should analyze by sum, quantity, average, minimum, maximum and standard deviation. Preferably all in the exact consultation. Review this guide & ask your supplier how operations will do if you quote an ERP system. Remember that a sound system is not always the most expensive but will best serve you.

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