Self-Service BI & Analytics Closes Data Gaps

History proves that self-service opportunities are popular with many, if not most, consumers. Technology has been providing digital self-service tools for years, but it’s only been recently that self-service business intelligence analytics have given industry leaders the tools they need to pick and choose the metrics they want to see.

Melding cloud and on-prem resources opens a world of self-serve analytics possibilities that save time and money while giving control of the operation to the C-suite, as opposed to the IT department.

Self-Service Saves Money

Self-service options abound in today’s communities. Customers like to select and pay for what they want without interacting with an employee and merchants save money by eliminating the cashier role. Adding analytics as a self-service option follows this logical course. Companies want to know why their data reflects what it does so they can make immediate decisions in response to that information. The capacity to choose which data is relevant at any given time without having to go through an IT provider gives business owners better control over how they manage their entity in real time.

Challenges with Old-Style Business Analytics Tools

However, business leaders have been hard-pressed to gain the control they want over corporate data to the same extent they provide control to their customers through self-service options. Most are finding that old-style data management tools are no longer sufficient to provide them with the critical corporate insights they seek, for a variety of reasons:

• Data volume is growing too fast. Companies are gathering more data faster than ever before, and the volume is now growing at an exponential rate. Storage of all that information needs structure and management, and many companies don’t have the tools needed to succeed at either.
• Today’s data is also more diverse than ever before. Not only is company programming feeding data into company databases, but other data formats are also incoming. Much of today’s data is unstructured and unrelated to existing databases, and traditional data management tools can no longer manage either the volume or the disparity of the data. For many companies, a significant percentage of critical business information is captured but stored away, never to be accessed.
• In-house data managers are expensive. The traditional IT department is no longer the deep well of technical knowledge that it once was. Technology today is evolving too fast for most IT professionals to remain current on all of the aspects all of the time. Additionally, adding experts and maintaining their training is often not a line item on the company budget.

It’s not surprising that many business leaders who see the benefits of self-service options would also seek self-service opportunities to get around these traditional, data management barriers.

Oracle Solves the Problem

Oracle responded to the growing demand for self-service business analytics by producing a hybrid on-prem/cloud solution – Business Intelligence 12c – that gives leaders the control they want over all the data they have:

• 12c’s Data Visualization programming organizes incoming data in real time to be immediately usable, so leaders can access relevant information when they need it.
• The programming blends personal and corporate data into a seamless whole that looks the same as previous on-prem versions so there’s no onerous training needed.
• A variety of gateways let leaders choose their connection to their newly configured computing technology; they can use a multi-tenant cloud or opt for a dedicated Oracle server for their needs.
• Using cloud computing capabilities to sort and classify all data formats makes all data accessible regardless of its format. Oracle’s cloud works with on-prem servers to both organize and facilitate access to and use of all company data.

Self-service is the growing preference for both businesses and customers. Oracle’s hybrid cloud Business Intelligence 12c analytics gives business leaders the self-service tools they need to stay on top of both their corporate data and their customers’ preferences.