Chapter 1. Self-service Business Intelligence, Creating Value from Data

Over the years most businesses have spent considerable amount of time, money, and effort in building databases, reporting systems, and Business Intelligence (BI) systems. IT often thinks that they are providing the necessary information to the business users for them to make the right decisions.

However, when I meet the users they tell me a different story. Most often they say that they do not have the information they need to do their job. Or they have to spend a lot of time getting the relevant information. Many users state that they spend more time getting access to the data than understanding the information.

This divide between IT and business is very common, it causes a lot of frustration and can cost a lot of money, which is a real issue for companies that needs to be solved for them to be profitable in the future. Research shows that by 2015 companies that build a good information management system will be 20 percent more profitable compared to their peers.

Note

You can read the entire research publication from http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/B/8/7B8AC938-2928-4B65-B1B3-0B523DDFCDC7/Big%20Data%20Gartner%20information_management_in_the_21st%20Century.pdf.

So how can an organization avoid the pitfalls in BI systems and create an effective way of working with information? This chapter will cover the following topics concerning it:

• Common user requirements related to BI

• Understanding how these requirements can be solved by Analysis Services

• An introduction to self-service reporting