Choosing Embedded BI: Build or Buy?
Businesses are continuously exploring ways to exploit data in fast-paced digital environments to gain a competitive advantage. Consequently, efficient business intelligence (BI) solutions have become a crucial need. One common question that arises during the implementation of these solutions is the choice between building or buying an embedded business intelligence system.
BI tools can be directly integrated into business applications through embedded BI. This approach simplifies data analysis by allowing users to examine data within an existing interface, promoting data-driven decisions. Embedded BI provides crucial insights for businesses to outperform competitors, from predicting sales trends to identifying operational inefficiencies.
This article is intended to provide a thorough comparison of these two choices, underlining the advantages, disadvantages, and key factors to assist you in making the best decision for your business.
Build or buy an embedded BI solution: what’s the difference?
Using an embedded BI solution in an organization requires users to choose between building their own solution or buying a premade one. Let’s look into both options deeper.
Building an analytics solution
Creating your own solution offers endless customization but requires resources and expertise. The decision to build an embedded BI solution depends on the pros and cons.
Pros
- Customization: Building your solution allows for complete customization. You can design analytics features and dashboards precisely tailored to your organization’s unique needs and requirements.
- Full control: Creating your own embedded analytics solution enables you to possess absolute authority over the development process, guaranteeing that the solution perfectly aligns with your existing systems and data sources.
- Data protection: Building your own embedded analytics solution enables you to set up your own security protocols and measures, ensuring that confidential data is safeguarded in line with your organization’s standards and compliance requirements.
- Security: When you build your own embedded BI solution, you have full ownership over its security. This is essential to companies that deal with sensitive data.
Cons
- Development time: Developing a custom solution takes time, potentially interrupting other important projects within your organization.
- Maintenance: Ongoing maintenance and updates become your responsibility, requiring a dedicated team to address bugs, add new features, and ensure the solution remains compatible with changing technologies.
- Expertise required: Building an embedded analytics solution demands expertise in data engineering, data visualization, software development, and potentially other specialized areas. Acquiring and retaining this talent can be challenging.
- Absence of premade features: Unlike ready-made solutions, customized ones lack any premade features and integrations. Everything must be built from scratch.
- Limited integrations: You’ll be missing out on data integrations that are built into ready-made BI solutions. You’ll have to depend on your in-house team to build each integration and keep it updated.
- Cost: Constructing an embedded BI solution can be costly, particularly if you need to recruit a team of developers for its creation and upkeep. The expense of hardware and software must also be considered.
When to build your own embedded BI solution
The following are several instances where constructing your own embedded BI solution might be the best choice for your business:
- Your unique needs can’t be addressed with the current embedded BI solutions available.
- Your BI solution needs to be seamlessly integrated with your existing systems and applications.
- You possess a sizable internal development team with the know-how to create and manage a BI solution.
However, it is crucial to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages prior to deciding to develop your own embedded BI solution. The process of creating your own solution can be pricey and time-consuming, and staying updated with the most recent BI trends and technologies can be challenging.
Next, let’s look at buying an embedded analytics solution.
Buying an analytics solution
Buying an embedded BI solution instantly delivers real-time insights within users’ workflows. This empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions swiftly without switching between different applications or platforms. Consider the following pros and cons before purchasing an embedded BI solution:
Pros
- Cost-effectiveness: Buying embedded BI may be more economical than building your own solution, particularly if you have a large user base to support.
- Rapid implementation: Purchasing an embedded BI tool will put analytics directly in your product or service faster as it eliminates most, if not all, development time.
- Access to latest features and innovations: Embedded BI vendors continuously innovate and introduce new features. By purchasing an embedded BI solution, you gain access to all the newest features and innovations without the need for self-development or maintenance.
- Reduced development effort: By buying solutions, you will not need to allocate internal resources or spend time developing and maintaining the analytics solution, thus freeing up your team for other strategic initiatives.
- Scalability: Commercial solutions are often designed to scale easily as your organization’s analytics needs grow, with the vendor handling infrastructure and performance considerations.
- Privacy and security: Buying embedded BI solutions provides enhanced privacy and security measures by offering specific users access controls and permissions. It ensures sensitive data is protected, mitigating risks associated with data breaches and unauthorized access.
Cons
- Vendor lock-in: When you buy an embedded BI product, you become dependent on a specific vendor’s technology, making it challenging to switch to a different BI solution in the future. This can limit your flexibility and potentially increase costs in the long term.
- Limited features: Buying an embedded BI tool may limit your ability to access advanced features and functionalities found in standalone BI tools, potentially hindering in-depth data analysis and reporting capabilities within your organization.
When to buy an embedded BI solution
Purchasing an embedded BI solution can be beneficial in several scenarios, such as:
- When you need a solution promptly. The prebuilt nature of embedded BI solutions enables immediate utilization, which is significantly beneficial if your business requires a swift BI solution implementation.
- When your resources are limited. Embedded BI solutions can save time and money by removing the necessity for hiring and training your own development and support team.
- When you require a scalable solution. Embedded BI solutions have the capacity to grow along with your business, allowing for an easy increase in users and data as your business expands.
- When you require a solution with extensive features. Embedded BI solutions generally provide a broad spectrum of features and functionalities. This is because embedded BI providers are continuously developing new features and investing in innovations.
Deciding between constructing or purchasing an embedded analytics solution hinges on your organization’s unique requirements, resources, and aims. In the end, the best decision should resonate with your organization’s strategic aspirations and operational abilities.
Factors to consider when choosing the right embedded BI solution for your needs
When deciding between constructing your own embedded BI solution and purchasing one, several factors should be examined:
- Budget: Crafting a custom-embedded BI solution can be costly, particularly if it necessitates the recruitment and training of new personnel. While purchasing an embedded BI solution also requires a substantial investment, it might prove more economical in the long run compared to creating one from scratch.
- Timeline: Creating an embedded BI solution is time-consuming, particularly if the specifications are complex. On the other hand, purchasing a ready-made solution is generally quicker.
- Resources: Assess whether you have the necessary internal expertise to develop and manage a BI solution. If not, purchasing a preexisting solution might be the best route.
- Requirements: Evaluate whether you need a highly tailored solution or if a ready-made embedded BI solution will suffice. If your needs are highly specific, creating your own solution might be more suitable.
- Features: Reflect on the features and functions that are crucial to you. While embedded BI solutions usually offer a broad array of features, some might be more essential to you than others.
- Scalability: If your business is expected to grow, you should consider whether you need a solution that can expand alongside it. Not all embedded BI solutions are built to scale.
- Support: The level of support you require should also be considered. Embedded BI providers usually offer a range of support options, allowing you to select the level that best suits your business.
By carefully considering these factors, you can make an informed choice about whether to build or purchase your embedded BI solution.
Comparison of building versus buying
The following table compares building and buying embedded BI:
In the decision between building or buying, carefully weigh the factors listed in the previous table to make a choice that aligns with your specific needs and resources. Ultimately, the right decision hinges on striking a balance between control and convenience.
Why buying embedded BI is the better choice
- In summary, both buying and building embedded BI have their own advantages and disadvantages, and the optimal decision depends on your business’s requirements. Creating embedded BI provides a customized solution and full authority over the BI environment but requires significant investments of time and resources.
- Buying an embedded BI solution provides immediate use of BI capabilities without continuous maintenance. This approach typically uses fewer resources and can be more economical for businesses that don’t have the expertise to develop a BI solution.
- A hybrid approach, using a prebuilt solution and customizing it to your needs, may also be beneficial.
- Bold BI presents an innovative, ready-made solution that integrates business intelligence capabilities seamlessly into your existing applications. This option is especially appealing for businesses seeking advanced data analytics without the hassle and resource investment of building their own infrastructure from scratch. It offers a practical route to acquiring BI tools, making it a viable choice to consider when selecting a prebuilt solution.
Originally published at https://www.boldbi.com on October 17, 2023.
