Business intelligence tools: Choosing the right BI product |
 |
EXPERT RESPONSE FROM: William McKnight
|
|
|
|
| > |
QUESTION POSED ON: 18 March 2003
I recently read that half of all companies surveyed by Gartner plan to buy
business intelligene (BI) tools in the coming year. My company is one of them! Can you give us
some basic pointers on selecting BI products? Also, can you comment on any
specific vendors/products out there?
|
|
| > |
EXPERT RESPONSE
It depends what you mean by business intelligence tools. There are several categories of BI tools
such as data access tools, database management systems, extraction-transformation-loading tools, analytical applications, data modeling tools, data mining tools, data visualization tools, etc. Tools from several categories are needed to produce a business intelligence environment.
If you don't have current investment in these business intelligence tools, you might consider one of the handful of "framework" approaches to BI that minimizes the number of vendors you need to deal with but yet provides you access to everything, or most everything, you'll need.
There are a few buyer's guides out there for data warehousing on the web such as the one at SearchCRM.com (buyer's guide/Data Mining & Warehousing) that should provide you a starting point. If you're a member of Gartner or Meta, you can utilize their research or have access to their analysts. DM
Review magazine has tool reviews in each issue and at their website at www.dmreview.com.
Choosing a business intelligence tool can be a minefield. I would highly recommend the services of someone
experienced in BI that can do a quick study of your needs, recommend a short list (or final recommendations) and a process for selection that may include an RFI and/or in-house testing.
Check out some more expert advice on Choosing a business intelligence reporting tool
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Search and Browse the Expert Answer Center
Search and browse more than 25,000 question and
answer pairs from more than 250 TechTarget industry experts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
