Old school checklist out the window is replaced by modern BI and Analytics
Clearly, Santa runs a sophisticated and successful BI implementation; even the unredeemed Scrooge would have difficulty arguing that point.
Consider the variety and size of data inputs, we’re talking Terabytes of structures and unstructured data. The product mix and demand planning matrix. And the highly dynamic naughty/nice segmentation exercise requires not only the traditional checklist, but now also incorporation of Twitter feeds and Facebook posts. Oh the logistical challenges Santa faces and yet each year he pulls it off. Now there’s a guy who’s harnessed reindeer and Big Data.
Santa & Old School Data Analysis
I’m confident that Santa’s approach to evaluating Business Intelligence tools was different from the path taken by most c-level execs we work with. First, he’s not so top-line driven. Second, I’ll bet he brought a lot more energy, enthusiasm and daring-do to the selection process.
Unfortunately, most sales reps don’t get to call on Santa. And this post is intended to help reps justify BI implementations to an audience of “need BI, but have too many other pressing projects to implement” decision-makers. So, if indeed you BI sales reps out there want the WHOLE day off on Christmas, let’s face reality and get started.
CEO’s and CFO’s in medium to large growth-oriented companies will say they want a lot from BI, but it always comes down to the need to:
- Identify growth opportunities
- Display the operations in living color, accurately and quickly
Alas, what stands in the way of project approval and implementation success? The usual suspects:
- Lack of IT bandwidth
- Software and services being too expensive
- Poorly defined requirements
- Technology that is difficult to implement
Faced with this, wouldn’t you just once like to say: TRUST ME! We solve all of that and more! But as the consummate sales professionals that we are, we repress that urge and begin to remove the objections.
At this point, it’s useful to talk about ROI and implementation best-practices. The most cost-effective way to implement any enterprise system is to do it right the first time. But let’s challenge ourselves a little, if failure is not an option, then what’s the best “right way?” Easy. The fast-right way as opposed to the slow-right way.
It just so happens that the four common fears noted above are symptomatic of the traditional (slow) waterfall method of BI implementation. This is a largely sequential methodology, lasting 12-18 months. Typical phases include analysis, design specs, project planning, data construction, system testing and verification, acceptance testing, implementation, unplanned rework, dashboard creation, more testing, and finally deployment.
A medium-sized project can involve 18 or more technical disciplines, and cost a quarter of a million dollars. Talk about a lump of coal:
In contrast, a Halo BI implementation requires:
- A smaller team
- A less than a third of the time
- With a cost savings of up to 75%
Deploying faster not only saves money, it gets our customers to ROI faster. In that sense, Halo BI pays for itself relative to a traditional waterfall project. You’ll probably be asked to pinpoint where the project efficiencies are. If not, offer to explain.
Business Intelligence Development Cycles in Months
Typical BI development (top) vs rapid BI development with Halo BI
The upfront planning work is largely unaffected. The real savings are here:
- Development time reduced 2/3rds
- Unplanned rework reduced by the same
- Dashboards built and testing conducted simultaneously, saving another 60% in cost and time
In short, you’re working faster, smarter, and in parallel. Halo Source makes this possible. Halo Source is a powerful data aggregation and analysis engine at the core of Halo Business Intelligence. Built on top of industry standard SQL technologies, Source provides enterprise-grade data mashup, warehousing and analysis with outstanding flexibility and ease-of-use. Source reduces data construction time and gets you into testing faster, which reduces rework at the end.
What better present could a C-level decision maker give to himself, and his staff this holiday season!
You can follow Ray on Twitter at @majorbi
