How To Use Self-Service Business Intelligence

If you own a business, you know how much data there is to collect and manage. You might have an IT team busy at work, shuffling through data and preparing reports for you. You may even read several reports a day, but when someone else is creating the reports, you may not be getting the information you want. Let's take a closer look at self-service business intelligence and why it is important for businesses to understand how to use it.

What is SSBI?

Self-service reporting in business intelligence is a way for the end user, or the person requesting analytics, to get to and use company data, even if they aren't IT gurus. With minimal training, you or your employees can search for information and create data reports based on your specific needs.

Frees up the IT team

When you are able to retrieve your own data using data mining or queries, you no longer have to put in a request with the IT team. When you use SSBI before an approaching meeting, you can create your own report to get your point across. No more struggling to explain what you're looking for to the IT team, no more waiting in line for your turn. If you're constantly waiting for IT to get around to your requests for corporate analytics, you need Self Service Business Intelligence.

Decisions based on facts

Self Service analytics tools in business intelligence allows business people to make decisions based on facts instead of emotion. For example, if you own a coffee shop and think that most people start buying holiday flavors of coffee in November, you may start serving them on November 1^st. However, if you were keeping track of every time someone asked for a holiday flavor, you could run a query and figure out when people really do start asking about holiday drinks. Perhaps it's in mid-October, and you could start selling your holiday coffee earlier than you expected.

Take into consideration how many business decisions you make when you're emotional about a situation. In some of these cases, the data might suggest that it really wasn't as bad as it seemed. With SSBI, you don't have to wait for your IT team to pull up reports. You can do it yourself.

Self Service Business Intelligence is a wonderful way to get the data you need when you need it. Keep in mind, it will take some minor training to get all of your employees on board, just like the adoption of any new system or software, but the results will definitely make it worth your time and effort.