Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Self-Service BI - The Business Case for Upgrading to SAPBusinessObjects BI 4

Traditional BI answers known questions. Self-Service BI answers unknown questions.

So say Saskia Battersby and Pierre Leroux in a presentation they delivered at the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference 2012 (Extending Self-Service Capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects BI (PDF)).

Saskia and her colleague Deepa Sankar will be joining us for a webinar on Thursday, July 11, 2013, to discuss The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4. Part of that business case is the new self-service capabilities of BI 4, and the growing importance of self-service BI for competitive advantage.

What are unknown questions? As Donald Rumsfeld once said:

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.

While Rumsfeld's statement was widely ridiculed, it is actually quite accurate and succinct. If you don't know how to formulate the questions that challenge your assumptions or fill the gaps in your knowledge, then that information will elude you.

Or, as Mark Twainsaid, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Standard reports answer a set of standard questions on a periodic basis. They provide information on the known knowns and known unknowns -- the information you use to manage your daily operations. But what about those unknown unknowns? How do you find answers when you can't yet formulate the questions? More and more, your competitive advantage depends on learning those unknowns through proactive analytics. Your performance will depend not just on how you react to markets, but also how you predict events and act to take advantage of them. You will be judged not just on what you know, but on what you should have known.

That's where the self-serve aspects of BI have their impact. That's why it's important to take advantage of the new capabilities in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4. Join us for this informative webinar to learn more.

View the recorded webinar.

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