The Rise of Self-Service Business Intelligence

One of the hottest trends in BI lately has been self-service data analysis. Most leading solutions are heavily marketed to business users with this tagline, promising fewer headaches and quicker insights than traditional BI.

A recent survey conducted by Forbes and Qlik suggests that companies are enthusiastically agreeing with this reasoning. The survey’s respondents overwhelmingly indicated that they believe self-service data analysis leads to competitive advantages. According to Forbes Media’s Chief Insights Officer, Bruce Rogers, “Business users know their own needs better than anyone else. Self-service means they can explore whatever data they want, looking at it in a way that makes sense to them.”

These survey results resemble the findings of a survey conducted by Clutch earlier this year. Clutch is an online research and reviews company. Clutch surveyed 300 random data analytics software users in February of 2016 and asked a variety of questions about their use of BI solutions.

A minority of respondents stated that they were either “very dependent” or “somewhat dependent” on other people at their company in order to access their business intelligence data. On the other hand, 68% of respondents said that accessing their data in a timely manner was simple, compared to only 13% who said it was “somewhat difficult” and a mere 3% claiming it was “very difficult.” Lastly, only 19% of respondents identified inadequate data access as their biggest challenge surrounding BI data.

What do these results mean? Clearly, companies have invested in BI solutions that are easily accessible to business users. Forcing people to wait on IT in order to access business intelligence data makes no sense in the modern workplace. Buyers and sellers alike have recognized the need for easy instantaneous data access, and the result is an environment where users can view and interact with all types of data, whether they be internal or external, structured or unstructured.

What are some of the benefits of this new approach towards business intelligence? Traditionally, only a few departments within a company might use BI software. But with the new emphasis on self-service BI, we are seeing explosive growth in the applicability and adoption of BI. The respondents in Clutch’s survey worked in a variety of departments, from the obvious (IT, Logistics) to the not so obvious (Customer service, Human Resources). They also indicated that multiple departments were in fact adopting data analysis and finding innovative ways to create insights and value from their data.

Even though many companies have already jumped on board the self-service train, there are still stragglers out there. It may sound incredible, but 10% of the respondents in Clutch’s survey disagreed with the following statement: “Business Intelligence data is important to my company.” Ignoring the issue of why their company is using BI software to begin with if this is the case, this mindset is dangerously naïve in a world where the power of data analysis is growing exponentially. If the Forbes’ survey IT professionals are right, companies that don’t prioritize self-service BI are giving away a valuable advantage to their competitors!