With all the tremendous interest around BI, new vendors and tools are emerging almost every day. In general, you can approach your BI needs in two ways.
- You can try a top-down approach starting with the presentation layer, hoping that a cool data visualization tool and self-service BI will somehow solve your challenges. Lots of vendors out there would love to take you on that path.
- You can follow a bottom-up approach that starts with a solid data foundation and semantic layer that enables a single version of the truth and it is supported by most popular visualization tools.
I had the pleasure to teach a class this week for the HR department of one of the largest and most successful companies. They have an ambitious goal to establish a modern data analytics platform in order to gain insights into all aspects of their workforce. Their manager told that they have tried unsuccessfully the top-down approach and multiple vendor tools until they realized that the focus should be on the data first. And, I agree completely. There are no shortcuts.
On this note, join me for a full-day precon session “Deep Dive into the Microsoft BI Semantic Model (BISM)” at SQL Saturday Atlanta on May 2st to find out how the Microsoft BI helps you deliver a modern BI platform, as well as discussing the toolset strengths and challenges.
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