Don’t think of BI as an all-in-one solution

I recently had a short conversation on Business Intelligence with one of my peers. I tried to explain the premise that a Business Intelligence application in our industry (Health Care) should not be a one-size-fits all solution. Instead the technology should be tailored to the types of questions that it will need to answer most frequently.

When he claimed "of course it has to be able to answer any question, otherwise we could just write queries," I realized I failed to make my point. He is not the first person I've met to have this opinion. In fact, the opinion is pretty pervasive among my peers; and it is wrong.

Our Business Intelligence solution is a textbook case highlighting this point. Its' saga is a story for another day, but in our attempt to make it very flexible we failed to make it strong. That is, there's no limit to the reports you can create, but it's not great at answering any particular question.

I liken this to the difference between a hammer and a Swiss Army Knife. A hammer is great at driving nails, better than any other tool for this task. It also happens to be pretty good at removing nails too. A Swiss Army knife can do a lot of things from clipping nails to opening cans. But it's not particularly good at any of them.

The real beauty of a hammer, though, is the other things that it can do pretty well. In fact, if put to the test, it isn't hard to come up with at least as many tasks as can be done with a hammer as with the Swiss Army Knife. It can be a door-stop, a paper-weight, a meat tenderizer, a garden shovel, and more. Sure, it's lousy at tightening screws, but it can really drive nails.

Don't get me wrong. There's a place for firms that build all-in-one software. In fact, my former employer Information Builders is one such firm. My current BI solution is built on a MicroStrategy platform, another Swiss Army Knife vendor. Vertical solutions, like our health care application, need to be targeted; they need to be really good at particular questions.

Unfortunately, many designers of Business Intelligence solutions try to make Swiss Army Knives when they really need hammers. And given a good hammer and an innovative user, there will soon be many other tasks suitable for the tool.