6 Reasons Why Business Users Are Not Happy With Your Business Intelligence Solution

If there’s one concern we hear from small to medium sized organizations time and again, it’s that they aren’t getting the business intelligence reports they need, or even want.

Here are six reasons workers don’t get the right reports, and what can be done about it.

Reason 1. Poor Communication between the Requester and IT

Business users and IT are in a constant communication struggle. Either the requester doesn’t clearly communicate what type of report he wants, or IT misinterprets the request. Either way, the bottom line is Mike from manufacturing asked for Report ABC, (or at least he thought he did) but instead he got Report XYZ- and it’s of little or no value. Worse yet, due to IT’s backlog, it took 10 days for Mike to get the report, and now he’ll have to start the waiting game again.

If Mike’s organization used a BI solution designed for business-user to leverage, Mike could run the report himself! Best yet, if the report revealed insights he wanted to explore further, Mike wouldn’t need to nag IT- he could drill down into data without developer expertise.

Reason 2. BI Tool is Outdated or Can’t Perform Functions the User Needs it To

From CFOs to frontline managers, SMB employees want increasingly complex data analysis. The trouble is, if the organization is using an outdated BI solution, or one that’s modern, but not designed to perform the data analysis the requester needs, they’re not going to get the report they want.

Click here to download “4 Signs Your Users Are Frustrated With Your BI Solution”

Before you purchase a business intelligence tool, you must have a clear understanding of your use case/s- meaning what you’re trying to accomplish by using BI. If the BI tool isn’t a good fit for your use case/s, employees will be frustrated with it. Before you know it, your BI software is shelfware.

Reason 3. Data isn’t Real-time; it’s Stale

Often, employees need a report that contains real-time data, but their BI solution pulls data from a database that isn’t refreshed frequently. As a result, the data in the report is only as current as the last time the database was refreshed. Once again, employees don’t get the data they need.

Stale data is useful in some situations, but generally, the more current data is the more value it offers. When searching for a BI tool, it’s important to find one that can provide real-time data. Sisense, Yurbi and Chartio are three leading BI solutions that deliver real-time data.

Reason 4. IT Has No Time

More and more, SMBs want to leverage BI to gain insights, improve processes, and remain competitive. And that means their small IT department (or one lone “report wizard”) is getting inundated with dozens of requests for reports and data analysis. As a result of work overload, requesters aren’t getting the reports they need.

Frustrated with the situation, requesters eventually abandon the quest for business intelligence, or, take matters into their own hands. According to a survey of 600 professionals, 32 percent said it was common in their organization for employees to use a BI tool they purchased themselves, and circumvent IT altogether¹.

An affordable, agile BI tool can be leveraged by everyone in your organization. That frees up IT’s time to tackle other tasks, and means your employees can get the data they want, when they want it.

Reason 5. Reports are Being Pulled Manually

Many SMBs think BI software is too hard to implement (and leverage) because they lack IT staff. So, they pull what data they can manually or get it from the good ‘ol standby- Excel. But because they’re not using a BI tool, the data analysis that can be preformed is limited. As a result, employees can’t get the exact report they want.

Read this short article to find out if it’s time your organization stopped pulling reports manually and started automating operational reporting.  

Reason 6. No Mobile Access

Another reason employees are not getting the reports they want is because they’re out of the office and the BI solution they’re using does not offer mobile access. As the workforce becomes increasingly more mobile, access to data on-the-go is imperative.

When you’re comparing BI software, look for a tool with a mobile first strategy that allows the business user to pull real-time reports and view up to date dashboards right from their mobile device.

How do You Get the Reports You Want? Use the Right BI Tool.

If your employees aren’t getting the reports they want, your organization might benefit from a user-friendly business intelligence solution like Yurbi. To learn more about what the right BI tool can offer your organization, we encourage you to read our free eBook “The Hidden Cost of Bad Business Intelligence.” If you’re ready to take the next step, the Yurbi Pricing Guide will lay out everything you need to know to help calculate your BI costs and develop your usage strategy.

¹ Logixml BI Survey 2011 

Click here to download “4 Signs Your Users Are Frustrated With Your BI Solution”