| Results from a recently released survey, 2010 SMB | | | | maintain. Setting up a company-wide model, creating |
| Routes to Market Study, reveal a few interesting | | | | organizational plans, distributing and collecting |
| trends about how SMBs discover, learn about, | | | | information from different managers, consolidating |
| evaluate and buy technology solutions and services - | | | | multiple spreadsheets, and debugging broken macros |
| including their thoughts about BI solutions. The results | | | | and formulas becomes unsustainable and unproductive. |
| suggested that small AND medium businesses | | | | * Insufficient collaboration and feedback capabilities. |
| consider "getting better insights out of the data they | | | | Desktop spreadsheets are siloed, and don't enable |
| already have" as their highest technology priority. | | | | real-time data sharing and updating. Getting a unified, |
| Business Intelligence solutions can help solve this | | | | accurate view becomes difficult. |
| problem by enabling the tools that measure and | | | | * Errors can be common. Research shows that 20 to |
| manage organizational goals and objectives. BI can | | | | 40 percent of all spreadsheets contain errors, and as |
| also assist with conducting "what-if" analyses to | | | | they become more complex, error rates increase. |
| evaluate different courses of action. | | | | Without an audit trail, changes and mistakes can go |
| Here are the top 4 technology challenges for each: | | | | undetected and businesses end up making decisions |
| Top technology challenges for small businesses: | | | | based on bad information. |
| 1. Get better business insights from existing data: 35% | | | | * Inadequate analysis and reporting. Collecting |
| 2. Figuring out how different solutions can help the | | | | information and integrating it together into one |
| business: 32% | | | | spreadsheet is a lot of hassle. The detailed information |
| 3. Implementing new solutions/upgrades: 32% | | | | that decision-makers require can be difficult to obtain |
| 4. Integrating social media with Web site, marketing | | | | or not even available to them. |
| tools, etc.: 24% | | | | Business Intelligence solutions give businesses a way |
| Top technology challenges for medium businesses: | | | | to streamline and unify the data collection, analysis and |
| 1. Get better insights from existing data: 33% | | | | reporting process. BI solutions are built on a unified |
| 2. Figuring out how different solutions can help the | | | | database, so everyone involved in the process gets a |
| business: 32% | | | | single, real-time view of the data. Many BI solutions |
| 3. Integrating social media with Web site, marketing | | | | feature self-service dashboards and reporting tools |
| tools, etc.: 32% | | | | that make it easier and less time consuming to |
| 4. Implementing new solutions/upgrades: 30% | | | | contribute to and manage the process. |
| In very small companies, spreadsheets and other ad | | | | What else should you consider? |
| hoc tools are often considered enough to complete | | | | Make sure you are aware of vendor differences in |
| the task. But as companies expand, the amount of | | | | pricing, solution capabilities and complexity. You would |
| data being handled grows: there are new products | | | | benefit from starting off by conducting a thorough |
| and services, new markets and opportunities, | | | | assessment of your internal requirements, and then |
| investments, sales, marketing, among many other | | | | carefully investigating and evaluating how different |
| systems. | | | | offerings are aligned to your organizational |
| As a consequence, more people are increasingly | | | | requirements and limitations. You should take |
| roped into being part of the data collection and analysis | | | | advantage of free trials and demos which will help you |
| process, and different people in the organization | | | | get a better idea of whether a specific solution will fit |
| (marketing, human resources, finance, etc.) are required | | | | your needs. By taking more time in the first place to |
| to analyze data in different ways. Typical problems | | | | assess, evaluate and compare your alternatives, you'll |
| with using only spreadsheets are: | | | | greatly increase the odds of selecting a solution that |
| * Time consuming and labor intensive to establish and | | | | will meet, but not exceed your needs and budget. |