In the last 15 years that I’ve been working in the business intelligence (BI) community, I’ve seen vendors make a lot of mistakes. But the biggest misstep that I see time and time again is to act like your customers are data scientists. As a result, products are far too complex for many end users.

Data tools should be easy to use so customers can be self-sufficient. What’s the point of acquiring complex data if your customers can’t harness it to improve their business outcomes? Business intelligence is useless if the data simply provides a snapshot of where you’ve been. Customers need tools that recombine data in ways that better inform their decisions, lead to increased revenues, and, most importantly, show them where the business is going.

by Paul Schmidt

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