BI Tool Selection Process

Here are some best practices for BI Tool selection. These are good pointers

here from Tim Furey - however, he has analyzed this important decision

from the BI silo only! In my view, that is a major problem with most of the decision making that goes

about in the industry today! BI is the HOTbed on which most of the future applications (assuming the company is still

running with OLTP but not much of OLAP environment in place).Â

As the CRM, Supply Chain, Planning &

Forecasting, and Performance Management tools are integrated in - the decision that the company has taken with respect to the

BI tool specifically assumes a lot of significance! That is when we realize that integration between OLTP, Data Warehouse,

and the tools sitting on top of the DW need synergies that make them powerful. To evaluate the BI tool in isolation thus,

in my view, is not prudent!

What do you guys think? (pls give your views in the

comments)

• Select a Business Champion
  Select a

  highly visible and well-respected business champion who understands the value of investing in business intelligence

  technology and is empowered to choose business professionals across the enterprise to work with the information technology

  organization during the selection process.

• Define and Classify Business, Functional and

  Technical Requirements
  

  Conduct facilitated sessions to define the business, functional and technical

  requirements that will objectively guide decision making during the selection process. Requirements must be classified in one

  of three ways:

• Essential: unable to achieve strategic and operational

  objectives without it;

• Important: makes large contribution to strategic and operational objectives;

  and

• Desired.

  Typical business intelligence tool requirements may include:
  
  

  />Ease of use
  Overall look and feel
  Help menus, context help, online tutorials
  Ad hoc query creation
  Ad

  hoc queries to be saved or modified
  Export reports to other formats
  Publish reports to destinations
  

  />Dimensional drill-down
  Drill-through to detail from summary
  Statistical calculations
  Report from stored

  procedures, views
  Generates efficient SQL for chosen database
  Ability to view and modify generated SQL
  Ability

  to create tables
  Ability to join multiple tables
  Ability to create complex formulas
  Supports database

  security
  Restricts access to reports
  Capability to monitor performance
  Ability to customize generated SQL
  

  />Ability to limit rows queried
  Able to set maximum query time limit

• Leverage Gartner, Forrester, The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) and Ventana Research
  Use

  sources such as Gartner, Forrester,

  href="http://www.tdwi.org/" target="_blank">TDWI

  and Ventana Research to

  provide guidance on the vendors who are challengers, visionaries and leaders within the business intelligence spectrum and

  whose products are capable of meeting your defined business, functional and technical requirements from a macro level. The

  research will also provide insight on features and functions, strengths and limitations, and past vendor performance. The

  most successful vendors are ones who understand when their products have matured and follow up with new ones to maintain

  growth and success. Lastly, make sure each vendor’s supported technical framework – Web browser, client platform, server

  platform, Web servers, LDAP, OLAP servers, server databases – can be seamlessly integrated into your current and strategic

  information technology architecture.

• Assess Vendor Capabilities
  Assess each

  vendor’s market share and growth, financial strength and technical support. It is important to note that focusing solely on

  product functionality could leave your company at a strategic disadvantage. Nevertheless, revenue, net income and license

  fees from the previous four to six fiscal quarters are your best measurements for assessing the health of a vendor. In

  addition, a D&B financial stress

  class assessment will validate the financial stability of a vendor for the next 12 to 18 months.

• Prepare Preliminary Vendor Cost Model
  Prepare a “preliminary� cost model for each vendor and

  the respective product(s) covering licensing, first year technical support and maintenance, training, hardware (client and

  server requirements), anticipated system administration and consulting. Licensing costs can be estimated by determining the

  number of targeted users and then classifying them in one of four ways:

  Administrator: Adds,

  changes and deletes user accounts; creates and manages security profiles; creates and manages metadata; maintains out-of-the

  -box portal; monitors performance and utilization; and manages configuration.

  Power User:

  Creates, schedules, publishes and distributes “board-room quality� reports; creates standard report templates with

  parameters, calculations, filtering conditions; and provides first-tier support for user and report viewer constituency.
  

  />
  User: Creates, schedules and runs “lightly formatted� reports; subscribes, modifies, schedules

  and runs standard reports. Also, views published reports and will possess limited publishing capability.
  
  

  />Report Viewer:

  Views published reports.

• Establish a First Pass Vendor

  Shortlist
  

  Establish a “first pass� shortlist consisting of three to four vendors by taking into

  consideration the accumulated research covering functionality, architecture and technology, supported platforms, cost,

  financial strength, technical support, vendor expertise, etc. It is critical that this shortlist be achieved without

  contacting any business intelligence vendor directly.

• Schedule Tailored Vendor Presentations
  /> Leverage the “first pass� shortlist to schedule three-hour “tailored� presentations with each vendor.

  This presentation will facilitate the validation of accumulated research, and the assessment of product functionality and

  capabilities against the defined business, functional and technical requirements. A recommended tailored presentation agenda

  includes:
  15 minutes: Vendor overview
  30 minutes:

  Validate / refine accumulated research
  90 minutes: Demonstrate product functionality and

  capability against specified requirements
  20 minutes: Additional features and functions

  (vendor “wow factor�)
  25 minutes: Questions and answers / next steps
  
  

  />This approach maximizes productivity and controls the flow of critical vendor and product information in order to make an

  informed decision on a “best fit.� Furthermore, it drives the establishment of a “second pass� shortlist (i.e., final

  two vendors).
  
  Install the Second Pass Vendor Shortlist Business Intelligence Products
  

  />

  Coordinate with the vendors on the “second pass� shortlist to have their respective business intelligence

  products installed in your environment and to deliver a small prototype using your predefined specifications.

  This

  best practices approach ensures the verification of product functionality against defined requirements in a controlled

  environment (e.g., testing scenarios); allows the vendor to showcase additional features and functions (vendor “wow

  factor�); provides further insight for planning business intelligence development, deployment, support and training

  strategies; and enables a “micro� product comparison analysis on key decision criteria such as features and functions

  (scalability; performance management and tuning; speed of deployment; metadata management; reusability / interoperability;

  bursting; etc.).

  Business intelligence vendors will invest time, effort and money into head-to-head competitions

  when a methodical, experience-based approach is governing product selection.
  
  Make an Informed Business

  Decision
  Although these best practices are just a subset of a more comprehensive library for business

  intelligence tool selection, they are the main ones to streamline this process. It is not uncommon to find prospective

  clients who have embarked on the selection process with no methodical, experience-based approach for guidance. After several

  months, they are no further along than when they started.

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