Business intelligence (BI) improves business performance and boosts revenues by helping you identify opportunities from current and historic data. To collate this Big Data into one single point of truth, executives turn to business intelligence and analytic solutions, but the thousands of different BI offerings on the market make it difficult to determine which BI solution to choose. According to TEC CTO Mehdi Aftahi compounding this are external and internal company challenges including finding a product that integrates with your current applications, satisfies all team members, and fits within your budget.
To hedge your risk and increase your potential for success, your BI product needs to meet your company’s current and future needs, which is why companies start their evaluation process by gathering BI requirements to help them determine what to look for in a vendor.
Check out this short video from TEC introducing BI systems and how they can be used in business to enhance your business performance and hence your bottom line:
A business intelligence requirements gathering template—also known as a business intelligence report requirements template or a business intelligence requirements checklist—is a tool used to gather and document the necessary information and criteria for a successful BI software evaluation and selection project, and even implementation project. It helps ensure that the selected BI solution meets the needs of the organization and its stakeholders. While specific requirements may vary depending on the nature of the project, industry, and organization, here is a general business intelligence checklist that you can adapt and expand upon:
Your business intelligence requirements gathering template is grouped into functional and nonfunctional requirements. The functional items define what your BI system must do and what its features and functions are, such as data modeling and database design. Non-functional requirements itemize your BI system’s qualitative attributes, such as usability and user experience.
TIP: TEC’s Brief Intro to Business Intelligence (BI) Systems concludes that the best BI requirements lists are those that are thorough and clear.
Your specific functional requirements depend on your organization's industry, objectives, and user needs.
TIP: In 2014, TEC surveyed more than 250 users of mobile business intelligence solutions to determine some of their common use practices with mobile BI applications and their mobile BI requirements. Among other discoveries, TEC discerned that few organizations use mobile BI to its full potential for reasons that include poor user experience and understanding. For best BI mobile practices, check out our Mobile BI Buyer's Guide.
In 2013, TEC surveyed 9,000 small to midsize companies to see which requirements decision makers factored into their selection process. Questions ranged from how much executives were willing to spend to which BI functionalities they prioritized and what their platform requirements were. Survey results were useful in that they informed TEC clients about which tools and attributes to consider as they compiled their own BI requirements.
On budget, TEC found that most of these small to midsize businesses (SMBs) spend somewhere between $25k to $100k (USD) on their new or updated BI system—which is around how much the average reliable software-as-a-service (SaaS) BI product costs.
(Source: TEC Market Survey Report: What Organizations Want in Business Intelligence (BI) Software)
TEC also discerned a growing trend to BI SaaS solutions for their cheapness, scalability, and networking potential.
Bottom line: TEC’s Market Survey Report could point you to what your competitors look for. At the same time, it’s important to keep in mind that while those requirements reflect what decision makers identified as their top business needs, they may not reflect your own—which are unique.
The business intelligence requirements checklist template serves as a starting point for gathering and documenting specific requirements tailored to your company’s needs.
In all, a comprehensive and clear business intelligence requirements checklist should help your organization select a BI solution that meets your specific needs for present and future growth. It’s important however to tweak or adapt the template to suit your specific situation and requirements.
For successful BI software selection and implementation, you need a data-based business intelligence requirements list to guide you. And that, according to TEC's CTO Mehdi Aftahi is why it’s so important that your list of requirements should be complete and clear. Companies with partial or vague business requirements are more likely to spend unnecessary time and expense in project implementation, adding and changing requirements to make their selection work. Prolonged implementation interrupts business as usual and could affect stakeholders’ enthusiasm for the new system, among other issues.
For best chance of success, it’s good practice to Stop Gathering Requirements and Start Building Them. Everything in business solutions is, in a sense, made up of requirements that serve as building blocks for all that “matters” to an organization. Many of the requirements are organically related. For example, your business intelligence functional requirements are likely to include reporting and dashboards, which inevitably leads to the BI non-functional requirement of a user-friendly database experience. TEC suggests you focus on what you need to benefit your business and the right questions will emerge as a result.
To gather business intelligence (BI) requirements, organizations should assess their BI infrastructure’s maturity, gather issues with current systems, identify crucial tools, and envision an ideal future state. This process should be complemented by additional assessments to ensure comprehensive, actionable BI requirements for successful implementations. Let’s dig into this process in more detail.
Software implementation is complex and expensive with a 75% risk of failure (according to Gartner), which is why it’s critical to ensure that your business intelligence requirements specify how your system should meet the needs of its users, operate as required, and deliver value to your organization.
To paraphrase TEC’s Jorge Garcia: “By adopting this methodological approach, you may find that you have already established the basis for a coherent BI maturity process”.
Download TEC’s business intelligence requirements checklist, also known as our BI RFP template checklist, to access a complete list of BI features and business requirements available on the current market.
For a comprehensive description of each module and feature set, read our overview of BI systems, including their business benefits, pricing considerations, top BI systems on the market, how to select the best BI system for your business, and much more.
To save our clients time and boost their chances of finding that best-fit solution first-time round, TEC invested its 30+ years of experience in enterprise software assessment and consulting into drafting its own business intelligence requirements gathering template. The template contains thousands of category-specific words precisely matched to that particular software product.
TEC follows a structured and time-tested methodology to guide our clients to make the right software selection decision.
TEC’s BI Evaluation & Selection Process:
Additionally, we enhance the BI software evaluation and selection process by leveraging TECAdvisor, our proprietary decision engine that consolidates information on enterprise software into a single location. The system allows us to codify the features, capabilities, and other requirements of various BI solutions, for example, allowing our clients to comprehensively compare BI software solutions side by side, and feature by feature, according to your specific needs. Inputting all the different requirements into the system ensures you make a decision based on data—and not vendor hype—and have all audit trail to support every step of your process.
By combining this with our deep expertise impartial consulting, we help you navigate the complex landscape of BI software selection. We can help you make an informed decision, selecting the BI solution that best aligns with your organization's objectives and enhances your data management and analysis processes. But don’t take it from us—read about one of our many enterprise software selection success stories.
Arysta LifeScience, a global agricultural company, faced challenges with data management and analysis due to fragmented systems. They sought a business intelligence (BI) and business performance management (BPM) solution. TEC assisted Arysta by providing tailored software selection services. Through a collaborative process, TEC helped Arysta narrow down vendors and select the best-fit BI/BPM system. TEC’s methodology, unbiased approach, and ability to align Arysta’s requirements with available functionality helped mitigate risks, reduce the evaluation period, and improve Arysta’s their decision-making processes.
