According to the 2020 Global State of Enterprise Analytics Report, 65% of global enterprises have increased or are planning to increase their analytics spending this year. For many organizations, that means finally getting off legacy data analytics platforms and making the transition to more modern Business Intelligence solutions. A combination of Big Data and evolving analytics requirements has caused SMBs and enterprises alike to re-evaluate their current BI capabilities and opt for more robust and user-friendly analytics platforms. But with so many BI tools on the market, the vendor evaluation process alone can be a major headache for enterprises looking for the best solution for their use case.
While every organization will have a different enterprise analytics strategy, there are a few key features that every business should look for in an analytics platform. In other words, these features should be dealbreakers in your BI vendor evaluation process.
1. Everything Should Be Customizable.
Your Business Intelligence tool should work for you, not the other way around. But there are many data analytics solutions on the market today that aren’t customizable to any meaningful extent. These plug-and-play solutions are great for smaller businesses that require something quick and simple out of the box. In other words, they’re short-term solutions, ideal for a small set of users that need basic dashboards and a few reports. But for enterprises, they’re limiting and risky.
Enterprise analytics solutions should offer end-to-end configuration so you can craft an analytics experience that fits and empowers your users. That means configurable report designers for both simple and advanced users, report templates with pre-selected data sources, objects and columns with business-relevant terminology, and more.
Modern BI solutions also offer granular tenant, role, and user permissions and access rights. This makes it easy to ensure that each user only sees what they need to. Even better, it allows your business to monetize different levels of analytics functionality.
2. Self-Service Reporting to Reduce IT Workload
Enterprises today are investing more in analytics because they recognize the business value of data-driven decision making. Part of their enterprise analytics strategy is to extend analytics functionality to more business users across their organization. More data in more hands equal more insights.
But regardless of your industry, it’s likely that not all your end users are adept at creating reports. If your Business Intelligence tool requires an understanding of the underlying data model or writing SQL, then it’s only useful to your IT department. That also means that they’ll be spending a good chunk of their time creating reports for other users. In other words, they’ll only be spending a fraction of their time doing what you hired them to do.
Modern BI solutions focus on empowering users of any technical skill with self-service reporting functionality, not only those with data science training. Features such as drag-and-drop UIs, natural language queries, and interactive visualizations – all with real-time data – allow citizen users to perform advanced analytics to gain actionable insights into their business data. And more insights lead to more innovation, efficiency, and revenue for your enterprise.
3. Integrated Security
Data is valuable – that’s why enterprises are not only investing heavily in analytics, but also in data security. On average, a data breach costs a company $3.86 million, a risk many businesses can’t afford to take lightly. That means evaluating data vulnerabilities at every point – including your BI solution.
Many BI solutions require their own security protocols on top of your existing ones. This is not an “extra layer of security” like many BI companies advertise. It’s an expansion of your attack surface.
The best enterprise BI tools are those that inherit your existing security. In other words, the BI software sits behind your application. What’s the point in investing millions of dollars into your own data security if you have to rely on the security of a third-party BI tool?
4. Designed for Growth.
As an enterprise organization, you must be adept at adapting to the ever-evolving business landscape. New technologies and trends emerge at an accelerated pace. Now, more than ever, it’s critical that your business software be able to keep up.
Many enterprises are experiencing this pain point now with cloud migration. Those businesses still on legacy BI platforms are realizing the challenge (and cost) of moving their existing solution to the cloud. Unfortunately, many BI tools have been retro-fitted to be cloud compatible. This is not ideal.
Modern data analytics platforms are purpose-built to be deployed in cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments. And due to their flexible architecture, solutions like Izenda can scale alongside your business as it changes and grows.
Izenda: An Embedded Analytics Solution for SMBs and Enterprises
Izenda was purpose-built to be embedded natively inside your application, inherit your existing security, and empower every business user with self-service functionality. Our modern three-tiered architecture allows Izenda to easily scale alongside your organization.
To bring the power of analytics to your end-users, schedule your personalized demo below to get started.
