The Top 7 Reasons Why Business Intelligence User Adoption Fails

The business intelligence (BI) industry has been plagued with poor user adoption for years. Though implementing a BI solution is a top CIO initiative year after year, BI has a huge failure rate within companies. We believe the primary reason for BI failure is poor user adoption. In this article, we’ll look at the top seven reasons why BI user adoption fails.

1. The product is challenging to use. When you buy a BI tool that is not designed for business users (i.e. non-technical users), adoption rates tend to plummet. Traditional BI vendors such as Business Objects, Cognos, Microstrategy, and Oracle, have tried to mask the complexity of their products with self-service BI features, but these tools still make users feel as though they need a computer science degree to use them. In order to ensure user adoption success, BI tools must have an inviting interface and must be intuitive to use.When we built Yurbi, we worked to address BI product complexity issues by building Yurbi as a completely self-service BI tool that is geared toward the non-technical business user.
Click here to download “4 Signs Your Users Are Frustrated With Your BI Solution”
2. There is a delay in report deliverability. If a user must wait for his or her report to be delivered, user adoption rates will decrease significantly. This delay may be caused by the user not having direct access to the reports he or she needs, or by the complexity of the tool. Both scenarios create a bottleneck for report deliverability, which leads to user frustration and BI tool abandonment.We addressed report deliverability within Yurbi. Because Yurbi was built for the business user, business users can easily create custom reports that are delivered quickly and contain information specific to their needs.
3. Users aren’t aware that the tool is available. In busy business environments where people are filtering through hundreds of emails per day, it’s easy for new technology announcements to slip through the cracks. If your team’s only BI tool announcement comes through email and you’re not able to audit the number of users that are actually logging into the tool, you’re essentially tossing your BI solution to the team and sitting with your fingers crossed, hoping they use it.We have addressed this issue within Yurbi via robust auditing capabilities that allow Yurbi administrators to see whether users are logging in and using the tool, and to see specifically which reports are being used. This allows administrators to uncover any underlying issues for the lack of user adoption.
4. The tool is viewed as simply “another login.” Many companies have so many tools and systems that users often feel overwhelmed by the number of systems into which they must login. In order to avoid login overload, the BI tool you choose must fit into users’ workflows.Within Yurbi, we have addressed this through embeddable reporting capabilities that allow Yurbi dashboards to be embedded into other applications. Additionally, finding a tool that can be white labeled and branded with your company’s branding, users are more likely to adopt the tool.
5. The tool cannot be accessed on mobile devices. Business users are typically on-the-go and don’t always have access to a desktop computer. Therefore, BI tools that don’t have mobile user interfaces that can be accessed on tablets and smartphones will have a poorer user adoption. Solutions such as Crystal Reports do not offer mobile access in their lower tier licenses, which means companies must pay more for mobile access.At 5000fish, we spent a lot of time building a mobile interface with HTML5 and JavaScript that ensures that Yurbi is fully responsive. This means that regardless of where you’re viewing Yurbi reports, the user experience remains consistent. The best part is that don’t charge additional fees for mobile access to Yurbi.
6. The metrics are not useful. While users may be craving useful data insights and show excitement towards a BI solution, sometimes that excitement fades after 30 days because users discover that the reports aren’t actually useful.  This problem may arise because you purchased the wrong product that doesn’t report on the right metrics that will help users improve their workflows. The key to purchasing and implementing a BI solution is to truly understand your users’ data needs, knowing which information will enable users to make smarter business decisions in their respective roles.We designed Yurbi in a way that addresses this issue. Yurbi is able to connect to multiple data sources, blending the data and allowing users to create custom reports that meet their individual reporting needs.
7. Your organization keeps repeating past mistakes. If your organization has tried to implement multiple BI tools and failed, the problem is likely with your organization’s processes versus the BI solutions. If your organization has been unsuccessful in implementing a BI solution, you should look at potential issues with internal politics and see whether your company truly understands its use cases for BI software. In order for BI to become successful, the technology must automate a manual process you’re already performing, meaning you should have a manual BI process in place before you bring in a heartier solution.

The Bottom Line

If your organization is having issues with BI adoption, please check out our guide to buying business intelligence software or contact us for assistance.