Empower BI HEROes With Self-Service Tools

In Forrester's recently published book, Empowered, Forrester Research analysts describe ways that new technologies can empower business people and make them true HEROes through individual contributions to their respective company's top and bottom lines. The book also points out how business intelligence (BI) is a key technology for HEROes, not only helping them to make sense of the mountains of data that they have to deal with, but actually allowing them to make better and faster decisions. But BI applications tend to exhibit an interesting paradoxical pattern: The more you use them, the more new and different requirements keep pouring in. This never-ending snowball effect of new BI requests from business users puts a significant strain on IT resources. Even with the most noble IT efforts, the "build it and they will come" BI paradox will take its toll. In the end, BI business users have no choice but to start fulfilling a significant portion of their own BI requirements using BI technologies that can enable BI self-service and empower BI HEROes.