Work more effectively: with self-service business intelligence

Self-service business intelligence today: Advantages for tomorrow

Self-service business intelligence (BI) is nothing new. IT departments have always sought ways to lighten the burden of ongoing requests such as report generation or dashboard design. And employees have also wanted to take care of their own information requirements themselves. However, there was often a lack of data availability, access options, tools or training. Expectations were not being met. In the meantime, self-service BI has developed to become as sophisticated as classical business intelligence – with consistent data stocks, high data availability and highly versatile, effective tools. This allows users in the company to access, analyse, visualise and evaluate the data that is relevant to them, whenever they want. Self-service business intelligence thus means faster decisions that directly affect the company. Decisions are based on data that can be specifically extracted from the vast amount of available data. 
 

The new role of IT in self-service BI

The role of IT departments has changed from a technical perspective – data analysis suppliers are a thing of the past: today the emphasis is on providing the infrastructure and technical support for self-service BI users. This enables companies to effectively tackle new targets – with optimally used resources, fast response times and reliable data security. Guaranteeing all these under the growing flood of data and according to company-specific requirements is the benchmark for effective self-service BI solutions, now and in the future.

Get ready for self-service business intelligence

As with a business intelligence solution, self-service BI must meet a number of important requirements in order to effectively use uniform, relevant, verified and secure data.

Creating starting conditions for speed to value

Take the time to provide the data that you want to use for self-service BI – whether as a data warehouse, data marketplace or Excel files. It is particularly important that the data should be consistent and complete. Only on this basis can users effectively use self-service BI for their evaluations.

Structure well and be better understood

Make it easier to access data by structuring it. Map complex data using familiar terms such as product, customer or revenue to provide a consistent, consolidated view of data across the enterprise and make it easier to use. The data view can be changed at will in data modelling, without any specialist know-how.

Get everyone on board to get moving with self-service BI

Apart from the important technical conditions, it is also important to involve all stakeholders and responsible parties in order to make such an investment consensually and to support the organisationally important restructuring in the long term. Everyone must understand and recognise the arguments. Prejudices can only be overcome by offering genuine advantages.

Discover data as genuine capital

The increasing flood of data is often regarded as a curse. In fact, it is the source of new capital for companies. With the right data and its rapid retrieval, successful business decisions can be made more quickly in the market. In order to use this capital profitably, the quality and consistency of data must be ensured. As well as opportunities, self-service business intelligence also carries risks. You should minimise these through increased data security and governance.
 

Using self-service BI effectively: Best practices

A system is only as effective as its user. Of course, self-service business intelligence tools are clearly and functionally structured so that the user can handle them as intuitively as possible and has an easy introduction to making analyses of company data. In addition, some important best practices for self-service business intelligence must be observed:

Plural parameters: greater variability

Use as many parameters as possible to increase flexibility. Users can then combine the parameters for reporting as desired – for example, time period, region or product category.

Very precise: Drop-down lists

Such lists from database tables according to the desired parameters provide more accuracy than manually entered data sets. Input errors are avoided, thus saving time.

Building trust: Reportings with source

Label reports to provide information about the source, author or data status. This can also be a default signature for departments. In this way you create higher reliability. Avoid using data without trustworthy identification.

Algorithm management: Efficient use of data

In order to effectively use all accruing and created data when preparing reports and dashboards within the self-service user group, common algorithms and predefined KPI templates should be agreed upon. This allows everyone to access the relevant data across the company and ensures comparability.

Fixed forms: Catalogues and designs for users

Make it easier for employees to use the self-service BI solution. Offer variable catalogue or dashboard templates that can be used for analyses and reports. In addition to facilitating work thanks to the templates, a uniform design can also be ensured – entirely in the spirit of corporate identity and visually learned forms of presentation. This optimises communication.

Self Service BI with Qlik Sense

Qlik Sense is a revolutionary application, which anyone can use to create self-service data visualisation, personalised reports and dynamic dashboards.

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