BI & Analytics

Choosing the Right Business Intelligence Consultancy

Are you looking for ways to consolidate your business’ multiple data sources to make them work more efficiently? Do you want to obtain a competitive advantage by analyzing large amounts of data of various types? Business intelligence consulting firms could be the answer for your needs, helping you uncover various hidden information relationships, as well...

business intelligence

Are you looking for ways to consolidate your business’ multiple data sources to make them work more efficiently? Do you want to obtain a competitive advantage by analyzing large amounts of data of various types? Business intelligence consulting firms could be the answer for your needs, helping you uncover various hidden information relationships, as well as improving business efficiency and cutting operational costs.

Business intelligence, also known as BI, enables your business to take large amounts of information and convert it into usable knowledge. BI is a set of architectures, technologies, methodologies, and processes that takes huge amounts of raw data and converts the resulting information into usable applications designed to improve strategic decision-making. BI applications include data mining, statistical analyses, queries and reporting, forecasting, and online analytical processing. BI consulting experts use any combination customized to your individual company requirements.

You could be a data services organization that handles terabytes of data daily from large-scale enterprise clients with social networking accounts, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.  With growing amounts of raw data that you want to transform into actionable information. After much consideration, you sign on with a BI consulting firm who recommends the implementation of a Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise data management software and open-source Hive data warehouse system. The BI solutions used resulted in a flexible and scalable infrastructure, while also having the ability to view the overall picture of the information analyzed.

You could be a small engineering firm who has been trading for over 35 years, recognizing the tough economic times toll on manufacturing and want to uncover any means to increase profits. Having large amounts of data on your computer system and wondering if there was some way to obtain better views of this data to use them to your benefit. One of your reps suggests BI and some BI consulting companies. You locate a BI expert who implements a small BI solution consisting of a per report charging arrangement to begin with. This provides the benefits of BI and cost-effectiveness until such time that you want to grow your business intelligence solutions.

When you are considering a BI consulting,

  • Always look for a company with a reputable track record. They should always have significant implementation experience.
  • Make sure the consultant evaluates all the business critical issues affecting your operation
  • Provides an unbiased view on both business processes, products, software and hardware
  • Demonstrate a phased approach where you can evaluate success and ROI in short term vs. running year long projects.

Business Intelligence implementations are all about Return on Investment and gaining information that would enable you to make decisions which you would not have done otherwise. If the consulting firm are unable to demonstrate these attributes in a short time frame, probably its not a good idea to work with them.

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