Businesses of all sizes are turning to self-service business intelligence tools, particularly those that incorporate visualization and other advanced user interface techniques to achieve greater ease of use and faster and better access to information and insights. This is partly a response to stretched IT staffs that cannot keep up with the constant demand for new reports and analysis.

Today’s business needs don’t always match the capabilities of yesterday’s analytic database design. Business users need the ability to perform analysis that combines data from multiple sources, not just the data warehouse – even in the best run, most analytically oriented companies that have worked hardest at their data architecture. For major corporations, data exploration and visualization tools can supplement their core BI initiatives, providing a friendlier front end that builds on existing investments. For smaller organizations, these tools may be the only ones they need.

This Gleansight benchmark report examines how Top Performers are utilizing these self-service BI tools to lower the barriers to better use of data. It looks at the technologies, organizational resources and performance metrics they have implemented and how they are achieving success in wiping away at least some of the challenges associated with effective business intelligence.