| There is an emerging segment of the business | | | | license. This can be attractive from a cash |
| intelligence market, on-demand BI, also known as SaaS | | | | management standpoint. |
| (Software as a Service) or hosted BI. | | | | However, on-demand BI is far from the perfect |
| Many SMBs think of on-demand as BI delivered to | | | | solution. Often, companies that pursue this option think |
| them on a "silver platter." In other words they think | | | | they are too small to be able to maintain an in-house |
| on-demand will be the fastest and easiest route to a | | | | solution. What companies don't realize is that the |
| functioning BI solution. On-demand vendors host both | | | | on-demand option is equally or more resource |
| the BI application and the data for their customers. | | | | intensive from a data perspective. Prior to the initial |
| Customers typically upload their data via FTP or some | | | | upload, the data must be pre-processed and cleansed. |
| other secure means of transport. Once the data is in | | | | This process requires significant in-house work by |
| the hands of the BI vendor, they load it into a data | | | | someone who knows the data. |
| warehouse residing on their servers. From there, | | | | Companies also don't realize that on-demand BI does |
| dashboards, reports, and analysis can be created and | | | | not provide real-time access to business information. |
| delivered via the customer through a web browser. | | | | Once data has been uploaded it is static. To refresh |
| On-demand BI is appealing to SMBs for several | | | | data, another time consuming upload process is |
| reasons. First and foremost, the SMB doesn't have to | | | | required. There can also be problems when companies |
| provide the necessary resources to host and manage | | | | want to add or change a data source, perhaps one |
| the application internally. This can be a significant | | | | that the on-demand BI vendor doesn't support. This |
| benefit for any business with limited or no IT resources | | | | may require re-working the entire data integration |
| available. Additionally, the SMB would typically pay for | | | | model. So on-demand BI might also limit flexibility down |
| the service on a subscription basis, which avoids the | | | | the road as the business grows and needs access to |
| higher one-time fees associated with a perpetual | | | | more data. |