Things to Note Before Launching Your Own Business Intelligence Tools
A business intelligence platform is a set of tools that enable users to create applications for people or organisations to better learn from and understand their businesses. This could range from a simple counter to tell which products are selling better to more complicated endeavours such as predicting your company’s future financial status.
A common use for this is BI Reporting - the collection of data so that someone or another program can analyse. Regardless of your motive, business intelligence systems are a definite asset to every kind of company.
You may be thinking of launching your own BI platform, or that it would be more advantageous compared to outsourcing to another company. However, every undertaking has its challenges, and you need to think about them carefully before you end up wasting a lot of time and effort. To help you decide, here is a list of advantages and disadvantages of launching your very own BI platform.
ADVANTAGES
Personalised Program
No one knows you better than yourself, and this especially holds true with your program. You are completely aware of what you want to achieve with these applications, up to the most minute detail. Ease of use comes with the package, too, as you will no doubt create your tool to be convenient for you to use and manage.
Security and Safety
The fewer people that have access to the coding of your tool, the better. The data accessible through this platform could easily be stolen by someone who knows their way through the code. While creating the program yourself doesn’t entirely remove the chance of hacking, it will limit the number of people who know the inner workings of your program.
Convenience
If you encounter any problems or bugs, you don’t have to call someone to get it fixed and go through the many problems that come with it, such as miscommunication and arguments. You programmed the platform so you would ideally know your way through it and fix any encountered errors.
DISADVANTAGES
Another Expense
This does not come without cost, as the business intelligence tools needed to create and maintain such programs won’t be cheap. Program licenses can cost you a lot of money and this doesn’t even take into account the time you’ll spend figuring all of this out. If you’re a beginner, then chances are you’ll be paying for lessons or books to better understand what’s happening on-screen.
Knowledge and Skill Requirement
Programming is not an easy subject and requires a lot of experience from the creator. You need to put in the extra effort to learn the basics to manage even a simple program. Studying and experiencing this may be difficult for some with hectic schedules or an already stressful workload.
Time Consuming
Learning, programming, and debugging will take a huge chunk out of your schedule. Programming is a continuous process of testing and optimising that could eat up your personal or work hours. If you have any experience with lengthy amounts of code, you would know how tedious it is to fix errors as it sometimes results into even more errors that you need to find and fix. This may not be suited for those that work another full job.
With this list, you’re now well-equipped to decide whether or not it’s worth it for you to launch your own BI system. Knowledge is power, and business intelligence and analytics give you the knowledge to optimise and improve your business for more efficiency.
Want to know more about business intelligence tools and systems? Or maybe looking for a helping hand in launching yours? Visit D&V Philippines and talk to experts who can shed more light on the subject.