While the adoption of self-service typically begins with the IT department, which sets up the infrastructure and usually develops the first apps for a couple of consumers, four distinct groups of customers can be distinguished within a typical enterprise environment:
- Power Users or Data Champions,
- Business Users or Data Visualisers,
- Consumers or Data Readers and
- IT or Data Overseers.
There may, of course, be hybrid user groups and each type will differ from each other in their level of interest, technical expertise, and the way in which they consume the data, but here are broad descriptions of the four main user segments.
Power Users or Data Champions
This user group is often frustrated with existing reporting or BI solutions and finds IT inadequate in delivering the same. As a result, especially in the past, they take away data dumps from IT solutions and create their own dashboards in Excel, using advanced skills such as VBA, Visual Basic for Applications. They generally like to participate in the development process but have been unable to do so due to governance rules and a strict old-school separation of IT from the business.
Self-service BI is addressing this group in particular, and identifying those users is key in reaching adoption within an organization. Within an established self-service environment, power users generally participate in committees revolving around the technical environments and represent the business interest. They also develop the bulk of the first versions of the apps, which, as part of a naturally evolving process, are then handed over to more experienced IT for them to be polished and optimized.
Power users advocate the self-service BI technology and often not only demo the insights and information they achieved to extract from their data, but also the efficiency and timeliness of doing so. At the same time, they also serve as the first point of contact for other users and consumers when it comes to questions about their apps and dashboards. Sometimes they also participate in a technical advisory capacity on whether other projects are feasible to be implemented using the same technology.
Within a self-service BI environment, it is safe to say that those power users are the pillars of a successful adoption.
Business Users or Data Visualizers
That being said, some form of creating new charts and loading data is sometimes still of interest to them, albeit on a very basic level. Timeliness, the relevance of data, and the user experience are most relevant to them. They are the ones who are slicing and dicing the data and drilling down into dimensions, and who are keen to click around in the app to obtain valuable information. Usually, a group of users belong to the same department and have a power user overseeing them with regard to questions but also in receiving feedback on how the dashboard can be improved even more. Their interaction with IT is mostly limited to requesting access and resolving unexpected technical errors.
Consumers or Data Readers
They are usually the kind of users who are happy with a report, either digital or in printed form, which summarizes highlights and lowlights in a few pages, requiring no interaction at all. Also, they are most sensitive to the timeliness and availability of their reports.
While usually the largest audience, at the same time this user group leverages the self-service capabilities of a BI tool the least. This poses a licensing challenge, as those users don’t take full advantage of the functionality on offer, but are costing the full amount in order to access the reports. It is therefore not uncommon to assign this type of user group a bucket of login access passes or not give them access to the self-service BI platform at all and give them the information they need in (digitally) printed format or within presentations, prepared by users.
IT or Data Overseers
They are in effect responsible for overseeing the power users and helping them with technical questions, but at the same time ensuring terms and definition as well as the look and feel is consistent and maintained across all apps. With self-service BI, IT plays a lesser role in actually developing the dashboards but assumes a more mentoring position, where training, consultation, and advisory in best practices are conducted.
While working closely with power users, IT also provides technical support to users and liaises with the IT infrastructure to ensure the server infrastructure is fit for purpose and up and running to serve the users. This also includes upgrading the platform where required and enriching it with additional functionality if and when available.
