Less time is needed to be operational with a SaaS BI (on-demand BI) solution. Not only is it easier to generate templates with on-demand solutions, they may come with automatically generated report and dashboard templates so that users can immediately gain insight before setting up a single report or dashboard; reports and dashboards can then be customized after users have had a chance to use the system. Interactive dashboards and reports can also lower the reliance on technical staff and make business teams more self-reliant without turning them into programmers.
Factors Impacting SaaS BI Time to Insight
A SaaS BI solution will usually require just a few weeks to get started, rather than the many months to a year involved with getting traditional enterprise BI software live.
Key factors that determine how long it will take a Business Intelligence solution to become operational include:
- Access to the data
With SaaS, any size of entity can start analyzing its available data and, over time, input data from additional sources. However, if specific data is needed and there is simply not ready access to it, the implementation period will be lengthened.
Most business teams, fortunately, find that they have ready access to enough data for a SaaS solution to give them meaningful insight. Solution providers should be able to help enterprises prioritize their data needs to determine whether the readily available data is sufficient for business purposes.
- The amount of automation of back-end processes
Much of the back-end processes (ETL, OLAP, and the Data Warehouse) can be automated to significantly reduce implementation time, costs, and resource drain.
- The solution's Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) capabilities
Advanced ETL solutions make it easier to pull multiple types of data into the system and run the necessary pre-calculations (transformations) that might be required. If the solution does not readily accept all necessary data formats, then expensive and time-consuming customization may be required.
- The ease of generating and customizing reports and dashboards.
Reports and dashboards that are automatically created can save significant time and enable users to start gaining insight immediately; over time, dashboards and reports can be customized to better fit needs. Also, some solutions provide the ability to create templates, which are easily reused and shared, dramatically reducing report and dashboard creation time.
With traditional enterprise software applications, customized dashboards and reports have required significant IT resources to produce.
- Responsiveness of the solution provider.
As with any other product or service, the responsiveness of the vendor is crucial to decreasing time to insight, as well as helping an enterprise optimize its use of SaaS BI. A series of factors have to be considered such as: planning capabilities; timeliness of response to fixes and requests; and quality of work. Please see “The criteria to use in evaluating SaaS BI vendors” for more information.
