By Glen
Rabie, CEO of Yellowfin
Embedding
basic reporting into your application and calling it a day is no longer enough
to satisfy the BI needs of today's user. Customers are more aware of what
modern analytics solutions offer - automated analytics, contextual analytics,
data storytelling - and this has become their benchmark for self-service
analytics. If your app can't keep up with those features, they will know - and
go elsewhere - and if your developers spend more time answering report requests
than improving the value of your app, it's important to update sooner, rather
than later.
For software
vendors, having a strong analytics capability is key to attracting more
customers and increasing the value of your application, making it imperative to
consider updating sooner, rather than later.
Today, analytics has evolved beyond just data
visualization and embedded dashboards. There's now automated insights,
contextual analytics, and data storytelling to consider - new and powerful
enterprise-grade tools your customers want, and expect, from their software
providers.
The modern era has seen users become
increasingly aware or familiar with these types of enterprise features, which
have become their benchmark for self-service BI. If they use your app and its
analytics aren't up to the same standard, they will know - and demand this
functionality.
Simply put, just giving users access to data
in your app doesn't mean you have strong analytics.
But when do you know your app's analytics are
outdated to warrant the need for an update?
- If your customers continuously
push report requests to your developers, your analytics isn't sufficient for today's needs or does
not support self-service as the workload is entirely put on your devs.
- If users are constantly demanding
more analytical features they see elsewhere, such as automated insight
discovery or contextual analytics.
- If customer adoption is low, your
software's features are likely viewed as outdated.
Maybe you have analytics your developers built
in-house, or an older embedded 3rd-party tool that suited your customer's needs
at the time. But the reality is your users' data is continuously increasing in
complexity and volume, and they will need better tools to be able to keep up.
If you put off an analytics upgrade for too
long, your users won't be satisfied with the experience, and you risk customer
churn, higher development costs and reduced win rates.
In this article, we detail the top 5
considerations software vendors should evaluate when deciding to update their
application's analytics and why it's imperative to upgrade today.
Reason 1 - You can focus on
improving your app's core experience
Building analytics from scratch costs a
significant amount of time and money and is often underestimated.
If your application's current analytics suite
is home grown and you continue to try to maintain it yourself rather than choose
to update via an embedded analytics solution, two critical problems typically
occur. Your developers either:
- Spend
significant time creating new reports for users
- Waste
valuable development sprints adding new analytical features to meet demand
The consequence of this approach is your
developers have less time to focus on improving your core software. They also
face an impossible task in trying to keep up with the latest enterprise
features of modern BI tools, without having the specialist skills or industry
knowledge those established platforms have.
By updating your app with a modern embedded analytics solution now, your
users can instead help themselves with actionable dashboards and self-service
reporting that opens up the ability for deeper analysis. You will also no
longer need to worry about keeping up with competitors.
Most importantly, if your end-users have the
latest BI features to fulfil their increasingly sophisticated BI needs, they
won't request new reports or features, freeing up your developers to focus on
your software, while improving customer satisfaction and increasing the
benefits of your app overall.
Reason 2 - You offer exceptional
analytical experiences for your customers
When you choose to upgrade with the latest
embedded analytics, you enable users to leverage the best self-service BI
features and technologies faster, and transform how your customers engage with
and use your application with tools that improve their user experience.
Modern BI solutions offer advanced features
such as automated business monitoring, tools that use
AI to automatically generate alerts, comparisons and insights to help users
monitor metrics and quickly answer their questions - without the need to
manually analyze complex data.
There's also powerful new ways to embed
analytics, like contextual analytics, which tie dashboards and reporting
together with user workflows, to deliver the data customers need to assist in
their decisions - directly within your user interface. Contextual analytics
enables your app's analytics to guide your customers toward making better use
of your app, optimizing their use of your software and increasing the business
benefits your software provides.
Reason 3 - You create and
maintain a competitive advantage for your solution
Market leading functionality such as automated
alerts and contextualized insights can offer an incredible amount of value to
your end users. Not only that - it can provide a long-term competitive
advantage.
Adding best-of-breed analytics to your
software means you keep ahead of competing applications in your feature-set and
create a stickier user experience.
You will also delight customers by
over-delivering with modern, future-proof capabilities like AI and machine
learning, with a chance for your solution to be recognised as best-in-class.
Ultimately, you improve the business benefits
of your app, satisfy users and retain a competitive differentiation over other
vendors by offering a modern analytics stack.
Reason 4 - You can lead your
modernization with embedded analytics
If you're currently re-architecting your
application for a migration to the cloud or the Software as a Service (SaaS)
model, there are significant benefits to leading your modernization efforts
with analytics.
Firstly, embedding a proven analytical
solution into your software product is one of the quickest modernization wins
you can have today. Little effort for your developers, but a big UI and user
experience facelift.
Analytics can also be used as an incentive
that gives on-premises clients a reason to shift to the cloud, increasing your
customer migration rate to your cloud service.
There is a significant opportunity to enable
more sophisticated analysis of your customer's data in a SaaS environment. You
can provide benchmark and comparative analytics (aggregated of course) so that
your customers know how they compare to their peers. This is valuable
information that helps your customers further.
All in all, modernizing with analytics and
moving away from an outdated architecture opens up valuable opportunities that
should not be overlooked when deciding on why to upgrade now.
Reason 5 - You realize new revenue
opportunities
Updating your app's analytics greatly reduces
customer churn, as your application will now have the many analytical features
and functions your users need.
Having a modern analytics stack also significantly
improves the win rate by giving your sales team another edge to win more deals
in the long-term.
Finally, you can charge more for your product
and its services by monetizing the new and advanced add-on analytical features
your application now offers, particularly if your competitors can't match your
new tools. Why? Because you now offer greater value, in a single package.
Why you need to update your
application's analytics today
Upgrading your app's analytics sooner rather
than later gives your users the ability to gain deeper analysis for better
decisions - and helps you keep up with demand for more BI capability.
To learn more about the benefits of embedded
analytics and best practices, watch Yellowfin's Embedded Analytics Walkthrough Video.
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About the Author
Glen Rabie is the CEO and
Co-Founder of Yellowfin,
a global analytics and BI software vendor. Prior to founding
Yellowfin, Glen worked for National Australia Bank in multiple roles,
including Senior Business Consultant and Global Manager. It was here that he
learned the value of enterprise data and developed his passion for data
analysis. Glen enjoys the challenge of bringing new products to market and
competing with the world's best. Most of all, he is proud of the team he's built
- their passion and seeing the difference that the Yellowfin team has made to
the analytics industry.