Evaluating Business Intelligence Tools is becoming more and more critical to success

In Actinium Consulting’s view, current changes in the Business Intelligence market make the evaluation of tailor-made tools difficult for companies. Above all, it’s currently uncertain what mid-term product policy the providers will pursue after taking over BI software houses. “So far it has not been an easy undertaking for the users to make the right decision in the confusing BI solutions market”, says Actinium manager, Klaus Hüttl. He refers to the results of an own study, in which every second BI user retrospectively expressed their dissatisfaction with their choice of BI tool. Above all the majority of them had overestimated the integration potential and implementability of the Business Intelligence solutions.

“Due to significant consolidation processes recently in the supplier market, the situation for the users is definitely not better, because it is to be expected that companies like SAP or IBM bring the acquired products more in line with their own portfolio. This undoubtedly complicates the shortlisting process”, according to the consultant, who sees problems in BI planning for users. Hüttl therefore recommends them to pay more attention to the evaluation, and so to orient themselves consistently to their own needs profile.