Are you feeling a world of data pain right now? Do you have the data, but can’t get the insight you need? The last thing you should do is immediately change your business intelligence software. Focus on people, not product.

Why do we say that? Well, in our experience it’s rarely the product that's at fault. Often our clients have invested in a business intelligence solution, but aren’t always getting what they need from it. They jump to blaming the solution and start looking for an alternative. But, when we dig a little deeper, it becomes clear they haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what the solution can do for them.

Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime

This old adage can even be applied to business intelligence! You see, you need to spend the time building your knowledge of the solution and keeping up to date with its capabilities. There's no point investing in a business intelligence solution, but not ensuring your people really know how to use it or get the most from it.

So here are 5 our top tips:

1: If you don't have the resource in-house, use business intelligence experts to bring their knowledge to you. You don't have to go to the solution provider, there are plenty of consultancies like ours that can provide expertise

2: To build your in-house capability, ask BI experts to design a bespoke training package for your business

3: Don’t let outgoing staff take all of their BI knowledge with them, make sure they train new staff first

4: Don’t be swayed when new decision makers, who have a favourite BI solution in mind, want to change provider - the investment is rarely worth it 

5: Keep track of updates and refresh your training so your teams are up-to-date. If you don't have time to do that, then find experts like us who can.

We’re lucky in the BI world to have lots of intuitive solutions including Qlik, Power BI, Tableau and more. But moving from one provider to another shouldn’t be your first solution. After all, if your car goes wrong, you don’t immediately take it to the scrap yard, you focus on fixing the problem first. The key to great BI is the knowledge of your people, so always invest in them first.

If you want to get more from your business intelligence solution, talk to us about our experts can help.