Business Intelligence Camp

By Joseph Schramm / October 1st, 2009 / Comments Off

The other day I was driving with my kids and we passed the location of one of the two summer camps they had attended this year.  My son blurted out “I don’t like that camp, they don’t let us pick and choose what we can do like the other camp does”.  I noticed a simple, straight-forward theme: CONTROL.

Two days later I was on the phone with a prospective customer and we were discussing the merits of our solution and approach.

• End-to-End SaaS-based Solution?                         √
• Pre-built Best-in-Class Content?                           √
• Rapid, Turnkey Implementation?                           √
• Fully Managed Database and Data Transfer?           X

And that was that.  The prospect did not like our solution because our approach is to fully manage the database and data transfer process for our customers as part of our service.  And while we fully enable our customers to make changes to their solution (they control all the content themselves and we accommodate any changes to the underlying database on their behalf), they wanted to maintain control over everything directly and not be “locked in” to a vendor to provide this.  There was that theme again….CONTROL.

So why do so many of our existing customers like our approach while some prospective customers do not?  Well, the answer seems to me at least, to be a matter of which BI Camp you belong to.  BI Camp #1 is the camp where the IT folks want to have complete, direct control of the database, what is in it, how and when to change it, etc.  The arguments that we hear are: “our business requirements change rapidly and we need to be able to adjust to that” or “we don’t want to be dependent on a 3rd party to manage these things for us”.  OK, I hear those arguments, but I would suggest that if you have to make frequent changes to the database it’s more likely to be symptomatic of the solution not meeting the needs of the business vs. a rapid change in business needs.  In fact, our experience has been that our customers only need minor changes on a quarterly basis because we deliver highly targeted business solutions…but I digress.

BI Camp #2 is the camp that would rather relinquish direct control over these tasks in order to free themselves to focus on other more pressing needs or needs that are deemed of a higher value to the organization.   Members of this camp recognize that they are stretched too thin as an organization and are looking for “flexible” capacity for their BI needs.

Another compelling driver for members in the second camp may be cost.  Some of our BI Camp #2 members have expressed that Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) the predictive nature of the ongoing cost structure for a SaaS BI solution is a big benefit (same cost every month/every year with no surprises).   Some also argue that the cost of delivering such a solution themselves in-house would be prohibitive.

This last point brings me to an interesting article published in a past issue of Business Technology Quarterly, written by Steve Williams, President of DecisionPath Consulting (http://www.btquarterly.com/?mc=bi-investment-factors&page=bi-viewarticle).  In this article, the author discusses the significant investments (not just in technology but also in human capital).  Some of these numbers are staggering: $1m/year, $2m/year, $5m/year, etc.  And the roster of required resources resembles that of a fantasy football team (sorry, but I could not help with that analogy this time of year…and I am 1-1 so far this year in case you were wondering!):

• A program manger
• One or more project managers
• A data architect
• One or more data modelers
• One or more business analysts
• An ETL architect
• One or more ETL developers
• A DBA
• One or more report architects
• A test manager and one or more test analysts
• A user support/help desk specialist

One of the potentially compelling aspects of our approach to SaaS BI is that we provide these resources to do this work.  This contrasts with the more common approach of other SaaS BI vendors who are looking to provide tools/platforms for developing BI solutions.  For the most part, they stop with the technology whereas we provide both the technology and requisite skills to deliver a full SOLUTION.  Hmmm, Tools/Platform vs. Solution…sounds like a good blog topic.

So campers, which BI camp do you belong to?

***This month’s wine recommendation: Le Baume Chardonnay, 2006

Tags: Business Intelligence, Reporting & Analytics, data warehouse, innovations, saas-based solution, pre-built content, rapid implementation, total cost of ownership