The allure of business intelligence (BI) is that it promises a meaningful look into a company's operations, improving decision-making and positively impacting an organization's bottom line. Such possibilities have made BI technology one of the chief priorities for IT departments in recent times. But, those promises are only realized when BI is embraced by users.

Large Community Demands Simplicity

In a recent Computerworld interview, Patrick Yip, a director at securities clearinghouse Pershing LLC, revealed some of the lessons they learned scaling their WebFOCUS BI system to serve roughly 78,000 users. The system was so simple to use, and yet so powerful that demand ramped up quickly – dozens of users became hundreds, and hundreds turned into thousands over a few short months.

From an end-user perspective, Yip stated in a Webcast moderated by CIO Magazine Publisher Gary Beach, Pershing wanted a system that was as easy to use as an online airline ticketing system. With no formal training required, users are able to log on and find what they need intuitively. This ease of use is part of what has spurred the growth of the user community to almost 80,000 users in one year.

In the Computerworld article, Yip emphasized that managing expectations is critical in expanding an application so rapidly. "You need to work with [lines of business] to convince them that they can't have everything," he said. "It is more important for BI applications to get out there sooner rather than later," adding that once you introduce new functionality you should treat it as a moving target because end-user requirements are always going to change. And as requirements change, the application further expands by unveiling new uses and capabilities. That's good news to Yip – he hopes to see well over 100,000 users.

Usability Reveals Untold Uses

Some BI systems are born directly out of business necessity. Others start life to serve specific tasks, and then evolve into mission-critical applications. The latter is true for Jon Dawson, a project manager in the information technology department at Holland America Line.

Feeling bogged down by the way report requests came into the IT department, Dawson looked for a better way to share information. Previously, staff reacted to requests for information. With WebFOCUS, they are proactive for the first time ever. Instead of merely addressing a reporting backlog, they ask themselves, "What is the staff going to need tomorrow?"

With minimal training, employees now use the solution – which is powered by Information Builders technology – to report against any data source on any platform in Holland America's enterprise. Intuitive drag-and-drop tools simplify the creation of richly formatted reports, and then automate their delivery in any format.

The initial deployment gives statistics about passengers' spending patterns and helps document the revenues generated onboard. This near real-time insight into buying patterns and trends allows Holland America's buyers to anticipate passenger demands and proactively respond to them. If reports indicate that a particular Merlot or Shiraz has an unexpected surge in popularity on a particular vessel, buyers can make sure that cases of these wines are waiting at that ship's next port of call. This maximizes both passenger satisfaction and the company's profitability. In 2003 Dawson told Computerworld magazine that, "We're still growing the system. [This is] the tip of the iceberg."

Since then they have expanded the use of their business intelligence system to sales, marketing, and operations. Once Dawson's team proved to the user community how easy it is to get usable, timely information, they can't get enough. By keeping the initial deployment simple, expansion felt like a natural progression.

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