The Real Power of SaaS BI for the “Casual” User

SAP announced Business Objects BI On Demand for the “casual user” but after watching the demonstration video I have to seriously question whether SAP understands the power that SaaS BI can bring to an organization.  The casual user is not a business analyst, data analyst or technologist – these traditional BI roles are not suitable to being done casually.  A casual user of BI is a person who wants to take advantage of business and operational intelligence in order to make better decisions more quickly as part of their daily routine.  They require the same intuitiveness and ease of use that we have come to expect from devices such as iPod.  Prior to the iPod, media servers were available but they were difficult to configure and required specialist knowledge of media formats, audio connectors etc.

SaaS BI can bring tremendous value to everyone making operational decisions, but we have to realize that these people are not inside the IT organization, nor are they business analysts, data architects, dashboard designers, or security administrators.  Several things bothered me about the SAP demonstration video, but here are some highlights:

• the concept that casual users would create their own data connections and dashboard views seems likely to produce the same anarchy and inconsistency of metrics and understanding that spreadsheet bloat has already created in many companies;
• the concept that someone could email their dashboard report and turn on full interactivity to the data regardless of whether the recipient had been previously authorized to view that data seems to go against sound security and compliance practices required in today’s corporate environment;
• the liberal use of the term “analytics” when really all that was being delivered were visualizations.

So what does the “casual user” require from a SaaS BI solution:

1. Ease of use, intuitiveness and natural interactivity with the data
   • all presented information is within the context of the user’s role, position and scope of authority;
   • a highly visual interface with the ability to select items of interest and ask for more detail in a natural way without having to know data structures;
   • the provision of context so the user can see the next level of detail in context with the aggregated view and the path taken to the detail;
   • the ability to move around and up/down the time hierarchy with as few clicks as possible;
   • the ability to easily apply one or more filters across all presented information.
2. Knowledge that they are working off a consistent, up-to-date ”single version of the truth” and they can focus on what the metrics are telling them, rather than whether the metric is correct.
3. The ability to collaborate and share knowledge and information with others in a secure, contextual manner.
4. Proactive notification of issues requiring attention since casual users won’t be watching a dashboard all day.
5. True analytic capabilities to help characterize issues
   • trending based on multiple algorithms and forecast projections to show how the issue has built up and what might happen if no action is taken;
   • variance analysis, correlation analysis, Pareto charts to show major contributors to the issue;
   • control charts to show variability and the range of variance.
6. Real-time what-if scenario analysis
   • the ability to  change the value of one or more metrics, drivers, dimensional members etc and immediately see the aggregated effect of those changes;
   • the ability to apply another scenario over the top and see the compounding effect of these changes;
   • the ability to apply an absolute value or a percentage change within a scenario and vary the change from one point to another (rather than simply applying the same percentage change across all points);
   • this allows the user to determine the most effective action or combination of actions to take to resolve an issue.

All of these capabilities empower everyday decision makers to continuously improve operations and business processes which will deliver better business results.  SaaS BI should not simply be about moving traditional BI to the cloud, and it shouldn’t simply add some front-end visuals to the same old capabilities that are aimed at business analysts.  This doesn’t make it more suitable for use by the casual user (similarly applying lipstick to a cranky bulldog doesn’t make it any more sociable). 

SaaS BI can and should be disruptive by bringing a new cost-effective business model, by delivering operational BI capabilities that empower everyone making decisions and by breaking the mold on how quickly a BI solution can deliver business value which should be in a matter of weeks if not days.  This is why I’m so excited about the real power of SaaS BI.