The core concept of business intelligence often refers to the analysing of data to extract actionable insights that help both business leaders and employees make informed decisions. More and more companies are adopting BI tools, with the market value estimated to reach $33.3 billion in 2025. In fact, 54% of business leaders consider cloud BI either critical or very important.
Business intelligence has numerous benefits, from faster reporting, enhanced operational efficiency and better-informed strategic decision making, to name a few. However, implementing BI tools is often the first hurdle that businesses must overcome before they can start reaping the benefits. The difficulty of implementation depends on a variety of factors (industry, training, etc.) and can be particularly challenging in the context of multi-site organisations which involves complex and sometimes fractured hierarchies.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at five common business intelligence implementation challenges and examine how you can begin to overcome each of them. Let’s get started.
The first step in the BI implementation process is making sure that you choose the right BI software to match the specific needs of your operation. This can be tricky as there is an ever-increasing number of solutions available in the BI market.
Understanding your own requirements is essential. Goals will vary from business to business, and multi-site networks in particular will have very specific targets. Unless you know what you want to achieve, finding the right solution will be almost impossible.
Once you have identified your key goals, there are a number of factors that you should also consider as a starting point. These include:
Make sure you spend ample time researching multiple solutions to identify the best software provider before making a decision. Finding a provider that offers continued support during implementation and beyond is recommended to ensure your business is able to fully utilise its software for positive outcomes.
Compare the features of different tools and determine which ones will solve your current data analytics issues. Make sure that the software you choose is easy to use, scalable, and allows business users to visualise data. There are multiple data visualisation tools on the market, however see how Loop Software goes beyond the dashboard and offers a more comprehensive solution.
BI tools and software can be costly, and this can make getting buy-in across your organisation to implement BI a challenging process. However, the real cost of acquiring a solution isn’t just the purchasing price. You also need to consider the cost of other factors related to implementation, such as training and scaling.
While cost is one of the biggest business intelligence implementation challenges, the right BI solution can yield a significant return on investment (ROI) that’s well worth the initial cost. This comes in the form of:
However, if your initial implementation goes wrong costs will only escalate further, with backtracking, new strategies and alternative solutions all required.
Take the time to compare software prices and request quotes. But keep in mind that the most affordable solution is not necessarily the best choice. Likewise, it’s not worth investing in an expensive tool if you don’t need most of its features. The most important thing to consider is the ROI your organisation will get, specifically how much operational efficiency, customer service, data accessibility, and revenue will improve.
Getting the help you need from your provider to ensure that your implementation process and rollout go smoothly the first time around is crucial, and will save your business money in the long run.
Even with a well-defined BI strategy, a lack of technical skills can impede the implementation of business intelligence software, making it harder to get buy-ins and preventing your system from functioning to its full capacity.
Without tailored, ongoing and relevant training, some BI tools will always be underutilised. As a result, you won’t see much, if any, improvement in your business outcomes and your ROI will be non-existent. That’s why it’s essential to try and anticipate as best as you can how much training will be needed in the early stages of your implementation.
Some BI tools have steeper learning curves than others. Look for a user-friendly platform, one with an intuitive interface that’s easy to use. This will allow the people who really need to access and understand the insights BI tools deliver to drive improvements within your organisation without intensive training or extensive prior knowledge.
It’s also important to establish whether or not your provider offers staff training as part of their services, and if so the additional cost this will incur. Also, try to gather learning material from your provider and make this accessible across your organisation.
For BI to yield results, you need an array of appropriate KPIs you can use to measure both the progress and the performance of your business or franchise network. Identifying the correct KPIs can be a challenge — some businesses make the mistake of following trends or using unhelpful metrics that aren’t always relevant and may even lead to poor decisions.
That’s why it’s so important to be clear on how each KPI aligns with your business goals. Not all KPIs will be relevant to your business, and focusing on the wrong KPIs can have a detrimental impact in the long run.
Fundamentally, the key to identifying the appropriate KPIs is understanding your own goals as a business and employing software that helps you focus on actionable insights. Industry-leading BI strategic partners will work with you to identify KPIs, another reason why it’s important to consider your options when looking to implement BI.
BI can be very technically focused, making it hard to understand and deploy successfully. Sometimes only IT staff or data analysts can navigate the data stored in data warehouses and use the complex BI tools to extract the key actionable insights. This makes reporting a long and complex process.
Unfortunately, business-level users who can benefit from the insights BI tools provide don’t always get the access to them they need. Without giving the correct access to the people who are best placed to utilise these insights and drive positive outcomes your BI tools and software may never reach their full potential, and ultimately fail to represent any meaningful return on investment.
Visualisation of data is key. Providing all users with simple and customisable dashboards with the most important KPIs displayed upfront will simplify processes and allow access to the people who really need it. You should also ensure your chosen BI solution provides your business with actionable insights that contextualise data and help to guide your next steps, turning data into outcomes.
BI adoption comes with a set of challenges, with choosing a provider being the most important one. The right partner will not only provide a BI platform that fits your needs, but will also be on hand to assist as you look to overcome the implementation challenges discussed above.
Having extensively worked with multi-site organisations, it’s evident that implementation is a key concern and challenge. However, we urge organisations to take a step back and assess whether the tool will encourage the desired behaviour across the network. While many BI tools are available, they traditionally focus on data dashboards. Although this helps identify problems and highlight opportunities, what about addressing them? There are many risks in taking a dashboard-only data management approach. You need a proactive tool that guides head office, field teams and retailers to take action based on the data you collect.
At Loop, we have extensive experience working with multi-site organisations across industries. Our customers use Loop for its many advantages, such as customisable dashboards and actionable KPIs. They also benefit from the assistance we provide regarding data analytics and the identification of KPIs to facilitate effective BI implementation. Book a demo with Loop today and see what it’s like in action.
Editor's note: This article was originally written in 2021 but has since been reviewed and updated.