1. Selecting the Best BI Tool
“Recognize the importance of selecting the right vendor and solution to the overall success of your BI deployment. Ultimately, the more important question is not which tool, but rather: how will you use business intelligence to provide business value?”
Cindi Howson, 2007

2. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Why do we care?
Because you can reduce processing time and save money if you have the right tool for you
Gatorade went from 1-4 hours with MicroStrategy to 3 minutes with QlikView and saved $237 in employee time for each report generated!

3. Selecting the Best BI Tool
How do we do it? (Howson, 2007)
Form a selection committee
Define target users and usage scenarios
Refine information requirements
Define and rank selection criteria
Request for information
Vendor scripted demos
Determine best fit
Proof of concept

4. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Who should be in the committee?
Information consumers
View and interact with prebuilt applications, reports, and dashboards
Power users
Customize existing reports and dashboards, connect to new data sources, and create custom analyses and reports
IT Report developers
Use BI tools, scripting language, and APIs to create custom applications, embed BI functionality into other applications

5. Selecting the Best BI Tool
How do we define target users and usage scenarios?

6. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Dashboards
(Executives & Managers)
Reports
(IT report developers, front-line workers, customers, suppliers, and regulators)

7. Selecting the Best BI Tool
How do we refine information requirements?
Develop a checklist of features and functionality
Source:

8. Selecting the Best BI Tool
How do we do we define and rank selection criteria?
Identify features and capabilities that are
Must-haves
Nice-to-haves
Will not use

9. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Typical must-haves
Data sources
Access to various databases and file types
Data filters and drilldown
Filter reports and visualizations
Web-based user interface
Visualizations
Security

10. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Typical must-haves
Microsoft Office Data Exchange
Export and Import with Microsoft Office products
Print and Export
Analysis Support
Blend data
Create measures
Save queries

11. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Typical nice-to-haves
Storytelling
Mobile BI
Real-time data integration

12. Selecting the Best BI Tool
How do we RFI?
Call the vendor and ask if their product supports your operating system, ask for specific feature names, and explanations for how the requirement you want is fulfilled
Keep RFI short, emphasizing the critical requirements on your list
Complement vendor RFI responses with your own research (customer references, published product reviews, discussion groups)

13. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Vendor scripted demos
Create a consistent agenda
Invite extended user base
Allow time for discussion
Consider supplying your own data

14. Selecting the Best BI Tool
Determine best fit
Proof of concept
Test the tool in your own environment
Stay focused on the critical requirements rather than just “playing” with the software
Goal: To confirm if the product works as expected

15. Selecting the Best BI Tool
How do we do it? (Howson, 2007)
Form a selection committee
Define target users and usage scenarios
Refine information requirements
Define and rank selection criteria
Request for information
Vendor scripted demos
Determine best fit
Proof of concept

16. Next Steps Negotiate contract
Implement, deploy, leverage, and promote your new BI tool!

17. What does Gartner Say?
2015
2016

18. Information Week
“The business intelligence (BI) market has reached an inflection point as organizations shift to agile workflows and self-service analytics driven by business leaders. This is a fundamental transformation from the centralized top-down BI platforms of IT organizations past. In this world, Microsoft, Qlik, and Tableau Software are big winners.” 
Source:

19. Conclusion Selecting the best BI tool 101 Involve the right people
Understand your users and requirements
Request information from vendors
Schedule scripted demos
Determine best fit
Test if the product works as expected