The integration of Web 2.0 and social media style features into
Business Intelligence (BI) applications – and other corporate
technologies and processes – has been an incessant talking point
during 2011.

The ability of ‘Social BI’ to deliver superior return on investment
(ROI) for reporting and analytics, by facilitating better and faster
collaborative decision-making, has seen many vendors scrambling to
incorporate collaborative functionality into their existing
offerings.


What the analysts say

There is no doubt that collaborative technologies are beginning to
gain significant momentum in the enterprise, with Gartner identifying
the impact of social media as one of four broad trends that will
change IT, and the economy, in the next 10 years. A recent Gartner
report also predicts that Social BI adoption will accelerate greatly
over the next 18 months, accounting for around 15 percent of all BI
deployment by 2013.

Other than the obvious financial incentives, research has identified
changing workplace culture as a driving force behind this
collaborative craze. A recent joint Unisys and IDC study has found
that with younger information workers entering the workplace for the
first time, the way in which corporate interaction takes place will
change.

The study expects that, in corporations with more than 500 employees,
the number of information workers using social networking platforms
will almost double between 2009 and 2014. The way people are able,
and expect, to interact and share information, both socially and in
the workplace, is in a transitional state.

But most importantly, independent industry analysts have also
unanimously pointed to the ability of collaborative decision-making,
facilitated by Social BI, to enable better understanding of data by
directly linking discussion to reports and visualizations.

In a recent interview with eCRM Guide, Forrester Research senior
analyst, James Kobielus, said that Social BI enabled decision-makers
from a range of departments – sales, marketing, pricing and promotions
– to utilize the information gleaned from data analysis more
effectively, and move from discussion to action, in significantly
reduced timeliness.


Feedback on Yellowfin’s social and collaborative capabilities: Let the
market do the talking

Improving information collaboration, and providing a crucial bridge
between insight and action, sounds alluring. However, integrating
collaborative capabilities into a BI application is a difficult task.
The objective is to create an intuitive environment, for sharing and
discussing reports and data analysis, which encourages widespread and
prolonged use. Users, of all technical abilities, must be able to
derive immediate value from such collaborative modules. If these
attempts at information networking are met with scepticism and viewed
as a gimmick, user drop-off will quickly follow.

At Yellowfin, we truly believe that Yellowfin’s collaborative features
and functionality form a clear competitive differentiator, and that
Social and Collaborative BI will continue to grow in stature, as the
consumerization of BI intensifies.

But who cares what we think – independent opinion is what counts
right?

When Yellowfin’s unique social and collaborative components hit the
market with the release of Yellowfin 5.1 in November 2010, they
received strong endorsement from BI industry veteran, Ian Nicholson.

“When I saw Social BI mentioned in the sales blurb, I thought it
sounded like a gimmick. Now having seen it, I think it’s genius.
Yellowfin should patent it quickly before the big players in the BI
space jump all over it.”

As mentioned, maintaining a high level of usability is crucial to not
only BI adoption, but also the adoption of collaborative functionality
within a BI solution. In a recent post on analytics forum, SmartData
Collective, president and founder of independent analyst firm,
WiseAnalytics, comments that Yellowfin offers leading “collaborative
functionality while maintaining a high level of ease of use.”

And when Yellowfin CEO, Glen Rabie, presented Yellowfin’s BI solution
to the renowned Boulder BI Brain Trust (BBBT) last month, BBBT host
and founder of Intelligence Solutions, Claudia Imhoff (Ph.D),
expressed admiration for Yellowfin’s collaborative capabilities:

“I find [Yellowfin’s collaborative features] remarkable, I think
Yellowfin’s one of the first tools to actually record a decision being
made.

“I think that ability to converse easily through Yellowfin is what
makes it so bright, so good for decision-making, people can then
understand more than just a number.”

The BBBT is a gathering of leading BI analysts and experts, who
participate in regular briefings with ‘interesting and innovative BI
vendors’.


Boris Evelson of Forrester Research: ‘BI Vendors Have To Eat Their Own
Dog Food’

But that’s really still not good enough. If you truly believe in the
validity and merit of something, anything, than you should practice
what you preach.

In a recent blog post – BI Vendors Have To Eat Their Own Dog Food –
Evelson asks if you would “trust a car salesman who’s not driving the
type of car he’s trying to sell you?” He then applies this analogy to
BI vendors, suggesting that when searching for a BI solution,
companies should ask them if they use their own BI tool to run their
business. He relates this point to BI by asking: “How can a vendor
convince you to buy its solutions if it hasn’t convinced its own
people?” We couldn’t agree more.

At Yellowfin, we use our BI solution to monitor, measure and manage a
range of business operations. When our web-traffic dipped in April
this year, we were immediately alerted to the change, and embedded the
appropriate reports into Yellowfin’s discussion forum to ascertain the
underlying culprit. Our conversation rapidly progressed, combining
internal reports, external content, and insights from multiple
people. The result? The fall in our reports was linked to Google’s
substantial algorithm change – the now infamous “Farmer” or “Panda”
update. Problem solved. Incidentally, post Panda – Google’s attempt
to reward quality web content – has delivered traffic of markedly
better quality to www.yellowfinbi.com


Conclusion? Yum, Yum, Yum

So, we’re happy to consume what we produce; thanks Boris. But we’d
like to think that we’re manufacturing something a little more
palatable than dog food.