This a good question to ask when you are looking at using BI in your small business. How does software-as-a-service BI function in a small business? How can these tools benefit customers and other stakeholders? Let’s dive in.

Bob Dieterle, senior VP & GM of Smart Online, calls SaaS BI applications a good replacement tool for “backend IT functions including the management of operating system licenses, upgrading patches and fixes and managing servers and networks which distracts the small business from their core mission.”

He also says the ability to get a “360-degree view of critical information and data” across the organization wherever you can access the Internet gives you a serious advantage in making timely decisions from HR to sales to responding to customers.

Take this example. A small consultancy of 10 people all working remotely can benefit from a SaaS BI application because they manage their own sales pipeline and prospecting. Organizational benefits include:

·         Each consultant can input prospect data into the tool, assign sales process tasks and gain an educated guess at sales probability.

·         The individual consultant can instantly develop a quote for the sales lead with pre-defined parameters – right inside the tool.

·         The CEO or owner can keep up with what’s happening with each consultant via a daily report because all information is updated in real-time and accessible from the Web-based BI tool.

·         The owner or chief executive can customize a dashboard to track consultant productivity and revenue forecasts. He or she can dig deeper into individual prospect data or pull reports on individual sales representatives.

“For a small business owner, having application that is scalable depending on fluctuations in one’s business is essential,” Dietrle says.

He points out that SaaS BI solutions don’t always have the upfront costs or lengthy contract obligations that traditional BI solutions require. This is appealing to the small business owner who is used to “doing more with less,” and has that as an overall business strategy.

Wayne Morris, CEO of myDIALs and writer of the Dialed In blog, founded a SaaS company after traditional BI tools didn’t give him a clear picture of his business He says that SaaS BI can enhance the value of internal performance metrics and lend transparency to the organization. Sharing this data with customers and other stakeholders can do several good things for the business including:

·         Enhancing customer satisfaction by providing transparency into the service quality and the company’s outcomes – Think healthcare quality scores, automotive testing and government fund responsibility.

·         Engaging the customer directly in the continuous improvement cycle.

·         Extending performance management into the customer’s processes such as procurement and forecasting.

Morris says this transparency is important to the small business because “proactively exposing performance metrics enables a productive conversation based on factual data and could lead to some breakthrough decisions made jointly with the customer.”

Other impactful results are improvements to efficiency, service and product quality as well as more consistent outcomes. He calls this system “operational BI.”

How do you find an adequate operational BI solution? Morris suggests looking for the following criteria in your SaaS BI solution:

·         Real time updates – This needs to happen multiple times per day.

·         Ease of use – To make decisions based on the data, it has to be accessible and easily digested.

·         Continued improvement – Focusing on business drivers and performance measures.

·         Data how you want it – It needs to be flexible based on how you see it, filter it, receive alerts, collaborate, analyze and give scenarios.

 So, we’ve made the case for an operational BI solution…where does SaaS play a role? Morris answers:

“A SaaS Operational BI solution is an excellent vehicle to provide timely, relevant information to people across multiple companies. SaaS delivers value quickly and customers pay for value as it is received, since they pay a subscription based on users or usage.  There is a clear incentive for the [SaaS BI] vendor to ensure customer satisfaction since if the customer is not satisfied they simply don't renew the subscription. There is no such thing as ‘shelf-ware’ in the SaaS model.”

Original Article: http://www.veloc-it.com/Default.aspx?tabid=58&EntryID=114