Top BI Challenges that are Hurting Your Organization’s Productivity

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Technology has changed the landscape of business, and recent innovations have only reinforced the increasing digitization of data. With countless sources that generate multiple data points, organizations must be equipped with the right resources to harness all this information and use it to facilitate decision-making. Research also indicates that the volume of data gathered by businesses globally will only double every 1.2 years. Thankfully, Business Intelligence tools are available to transform data into insights that can drive revenue for sales initiatives, frame plans for growth and expansion, streamline HR processes, and more.

The world of business has embraced Business Intelligence. According to reports, the global BI market is expected to reach almost $30 billion by 2022, and as many as 46% of small businesses now use BI tools such as virtual networking as a key component of their strategies. Similarly, over 90% of sales and marketing teams that were surveyed admitted that cloud BI is integral to their efficiency and results. And the top three companies in various industries that heavily use data-driven decision making were found to be 5% more productive and 6% more profitable than their less successful counterparts.

Nucleus Research suggests that every one dollar spent on Business Intelligence generates as much as $13 back, as a return on investment. However, it is important to note that BI must be used effectively so that its benefits can be enjoyed optimally.

The six challenges outlined below are the foremost roadblocks presented by the use of BI that may hinder your organization’s growth.

Challenge #1: Report Duplication

Duplicate data may sound like a harmless thing, but in enterprises, it can delay the efficient flow of business processes and even impact the bottom line. A 2013 report suggested that data duplication happens in about 92% of companies, and it can yield several unfavorable consequences, such as:

  • Inefficient cost management
  • Inaccurate reporting
  • Lack of comprehensive data-driven decision making
  • Lack of single customer views; and
  • Compromised income
Challenge #2: Unused Reports

If duplicate reports are an issue, unused reports are even more so. These available but underused resources not only stop you from taking full advantage of Business Intelligence, they also prevent proper decision-making and efficiency in your business processes. Where they could have provided necessary insights, unused reports only take up storage space and make your team miss out on promising developments and opportunities.

There are various reasons why reports can remain unused, but the most prominent ones are:

  • Reporting tools don’t provide personalized or comprehensive data
  • They are difficult to access; and
  • They are difficult to read and harder to analyze
Challenge #3: Low User Adoption

While Business Intelligence has been welcomed by enterprises, its adoption rate is still only at around 30%. The most probable cause for this is that when resources are added, many organizations fail to include their human resources into the mix, thereby running the risk of their team members not using the BI tools as they have intended. Additionally, low adoption rate can be explained by:

  • Poor data quality
  • Lack of well-defined business use cases; and
  • Lack of training
Challenge #4: Underutilized Licenses

Underused licenses not only add to Business Intelligence costs, they also prevent your organization from fully reaping the rewards that can be generated from BI tools and resources. Many companies report that more than half of their BI licenses are underutilized, and this is due to many possible reasons. First, there’s poor software management, such as manual license and version tracking. Also, some companies don’t invest in proper training, which results in employees not knowing how software licenses are supposed to help them perform their jobs easier and better.

Challenge #5: Inconsistent Decisions

Business Intelligence is designed to facilitate better decision-making through the use of business insights generated by data. However, human decisions cannot be replaced by algorithms; in many cases, organizations that don’t fully harness their BI often suffer from lack of organizational decision making by higher management.

Challenge #6: Complexity

Finally, there’s the problem of complexity. BI is positioned to simplify complex data into actionable insights, but if your BI platform is too complex to use, your organization will not be able to maximize all its potential for scalability and growth. A simple way to gauge if your current BI model is too complex is to consider these conditions:

  • You’re asking more questions than resolving problems
  • You’re more concerned with how resources work, rather than how to make the most out of them
  • Decision-making has not improved; and
  • Analyzing insights takes a lot of time and effort

At ZenOptics, we are dedicated to helping organizations leverage Business Intelligence to drive their businesses forward. Our analytics catalog enables improved productivity, collaboration, manageability, and governance through offering direct access to all your assets via a single interface. By transforming your dashboards, reports, spreadsheets, applications, and data into actionable insights, we deliver:

  • 25% savings in licensing costs
  • 35% savings in maintenance costs; and
  • 5 hours savings for each user/week

We have various plans suitable for your specific business needs and requirements. Contact us Today!

Published November 5, 2020
About The Author

ZenOptics helps organizations drive increased value from their analytics assets by improving the ability to discover information, trust it, and ultimately use it for improving decision confidence. Through our integrated platform, organizations can provide business users with a centralized portal to streamline the searchability, access, and use of analytics from across the entire ecosystem of tools and applications.

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