Changing data to insight for your company. Data truly becomes valuable to your company when you see its potential. In this new Dell white paper, discover the power and potential of business intelligence, and how you can put data to work for your mid-market company. Read it today. Sponsor: Dell Software from InfoWorld . Franco Ferrario

1. ©2012 Dell and Microsoft
Putting Data to Work for
Mid-Market Companies
Contents
The Context for Mid-Market BI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
BI for the Mid-Market. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Mid-Market Products and Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Context for Mid-Market BI
Data is the New Oil
The fuel of the information economy is data. We use data to describe products and services and
their fate in the marketplace. In some cases, the data about products is more valuable than the
products themselves. Many of the biggest companies in the new economy—Google, Amazon.com,
Netflix and eBay—don’t sell tangible products at all. Their profits derive largely from how they
collect, organize, display, manage and analyze data about things.
By itself, data is not worth much. Accountants don’t tally data as an asset on corporate balance
sheets. Rather, its value derives from what it enables: insights and actions. Data-driven companies
use data to 1) understand what’s happened in the past and what might happen in the future,
2) monitor progress toward achieving goals, 3) track and manage exposure to risks, and 4) most
importantly, adapt quickly to changing business conditions and opportunities. Data is the key
to business agility in the 21st century.
Benefits of BI
Like any raw material, data can be processed into a multiplicity of products—in this case,
reports, analyses and analytical models that drive business insights. These are the artifacts
of a data-driven discipline called business intelligence, or BI. Leading companies, both big
and small and across all industries, use BI to increase the analytical IQ of their employees,
from executives to front-line workers. Top-performing organizations are twice as likely to use
analytics to guide day-to-day operations and future strategies as lower performers.
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Tactical Benefits. At a tactical level, employees at data-driven companies spend less time
looking for data and reports or arguing about whose data is right and more time analyzing data
and making fact-based decisions. They spot trends and anomalies faster, and proactively address
issues rather than react to one crisis after the next.
U.S. Xpress Enterprises, a midsize trucking firm based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, recently built
a dashboard that pulls telemetric data from each of its 2,000 trucks every 15 minutes to track
the time they spend idling at rest stops. Armed with this real-time information, executives at
U.S. Xpress implemented new policies and procedures governing truck idling that have saved
the company millions of dollars in fuel costs.
Strategic Benefits. At a strategic level, leading adopters of BI use information to transform
their businesses and gain a competitive advantage. In many cases, information becomes the
product itself or a major component of a vital product or service.
For example, Kelley Blue Book, a veteran publisher of automobile valuations, calculated car
values through a combination of data sampling, industry knowledge and intuition. Seven years
ago, it changed this process, adopting a scientific approach to car valuations that applies math-
ematical models to large volumes of transaction data that it captures from auction houses and
other sources. Today, Kelley Blue Book publishes new car valuations each week for 53 regions
compared with once a month for three regions using the old process. This transition to a data-
driven approach to car valuations has set new standards for accuracy and reliability and given
Kelley Blue Book a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
BI for the Mid-Market
The Case for BI. Mid-market companies, like U.S. Xpress and Kelley Blue Book mentioned above,
need to deploy BI to thrive, and in some cases survive, in an increasingly volatile and competitive
market. A BI solution consists of a set of reports or dashboards with built-in analytical capabilities
that query a data warehouse or data mart. A complete BI solution contains all the software, hard-
ware and services needed to generate insights from data. For mid-market companies, the stakes
have never been higher.
Many mid-market companies are squeezed on the bottom by nimble start-ups that want to elbow
aside established players with new products and approaches, and on the top by aggressive
corporate behemoths that can leverage greater economies of scale and are foraging for new
revenue opportunities in smaller markets. To survive, mid-market companies need to aggressively
market their products and services to a wider audience, both at home and abroad. This often
requires new leadership, organizational strategies and technical expertise. In short, many mid-
market companies undergo constant change and need to leverage data to steer a straight path
through obstacles blocking their growth.
Until recently, the cost and complexity of deploying a BI solution locked midsize companies out
of the market. Most midsize companies don’t have millions of dollars to invest in BI solutions or
in-house experts to lead a BI program. And frankly, most mid-market executives don’t yet have a
vision for how BI can transform their organizations into analytical competitors. Nor do they have
the time and commitment to guide a change management program to ensure BI success.

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Waves of Change. But things are changing. As the BI market reaches maturity, vendors are
beginning to target midsize organizations as a new growth segment. Most BI vendors now offer
products and services to mid-market companies that are more affordable and easier to deploy
than their enterprise counterparts. Moreover, there are a slew of experienced BI consultants,
both at vendor organizations and independent consultancies, who are keen to guide mid-market
companies on their BI journeys.
One company that has exploited new mid-market BI solutions is RBC Wealth Management, a full-
service brokerage firm that operates in 42 states in the U.S. In 2007, RBC Wealth Management
knew it needed to invest in new technology to help its 2,000 brokers better manage leads,
opportunities and client portfolios. Consequently, it turned to a small analytical vendor that
delivers custom and packaged BI solutions in the cloud. The vendor delivered a rich dashboard
that gives brokers instant access to three years of history covering more than 400,000 households,
alerts them to high-value opportunities and enables them to create ad hoc views of data. This
mid-market solution spared RBC Wealth Management from having to purchase new hardware,
build an onsite data warehouse and hire experts in BI. It not only has saved the company $1 million
to $2 million in costs since its inception, it has also become a key tool in recruiting new brokers.
Mid-Market Products and Services
Certainly, cloud-based reports and dashboards are one way to reduce the cost and complexity
of deploying BI solutions. But there are other options as well, ranging from appliances and
packaged solutions to custom development by mid-market consultancies.
Layers of BI
Although most business users only see visual displays of data, most of the work involved in building
a BI solution stems from sourcing, integrating, cleaning and aggregating data. The dirtier and
more fragmented an organization’s data, the longer it takes to piece together a uniform view of the
enterprise for business consumption. While physically integrating data takes the most time, creat-
ing a logical framework with consistent definitions and rules is the most challenging aspect of
building a BI solution. The easiest part is building the reports and dashboards. (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1. Layers of BI
• Dashboards/reports
• Queiries/calculations
• Filters/prompts
• Drill paths
• Metrics
• Dimensions
• Attributes
• Hierarchies
• Relationships
• Data capture
• Data transformation
• Data cleansing
• Data loading
• Scheduling/error handling
IT designs, Business refines
Business defines
IT builds
10%
Application
Layer
30%
Logical Data
Modeling
60%
Physical Data
Integration
Mid-market BI offerings cover a range of tools and domain knowledge needed to deliver the
three layers of a BI solution.

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BI Components
At a component level, mid-market solutions typically provide a subset of the following: hardware
(server and storage), a relational database management system (RDBMS), a data model, a variety
of data integration tools and source data connectors, a metadata repository and a variety of re-
porting and analysis tools. Some companies, such as Dell, package components from the bottom
up, supplying hardware, an RDBMS and data integration tools. Other vendors work from the top
down, delivering reports, reporting software and a data model.
From a bottom-up perspective, mid-market offerings provide a robust foundation for managing data.
Thanks to rapid advances in price-performance of hardware components (i.e., CPU, memory and
disk), most mid-market BI platforms deliver sizable power and capacity to support most BI work-
loads. Vendors typically provide entry-level, midrange and high-end platforms to meet mid-market
companies’ current and future data processing needs. Fast-growing mid-market companies buy
higher-end platforms that will meet their scalability requirements for three to five years. Companies
with limited experience and resources should look for solutions that emphasize ease of use.
From a software perspective, packaged mid-market BI solutions typically provide a subset of
functionality compared with enterprise BI solutions, which is one reason they are priced more
affordably. Enterprise BI software providers bundle more niche capabilities into their packages.
In contrast, mid-market BI packages focus on delivering basic functionality that companies need
most. Typically, this consists of reporting or visual analysis software and just enough data integra-
tion capabilities to create a logical or physical data mart to support the application. They may
not provide all the functionality of enterprise BI solutions, but they provide the functionality that
companies need most. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2. BI Stack
Mid-market BI packages usually focus on delivering either interactive dashboards or visual
analysis tools, providing just enough data integration capabilities to create a logical or physical
data mart to support the BI application.
Reporting/Analysis
Data Mgmt
Department SCOPE Enterprise
Specialists
Specialists
Specialists
Mid-market
BI Vendors
Specialists
Specialists
Enterprise
BI Vendors
Functionality
Data access
Data transform
Data quality
Data modeling
Metadata
Data federation
Text-mining
Event-driven
Modeling
Search
Predictions
Monitoring
Analysis
Reporting

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Catalog of Mid-Market Tools
Midsize companies seeking a BI solution have several options to explore. The first step is to
select an option that suits your business, and the second step is to select a vendor, keeping
in mind that successful application of BI and analytic tools depends on establishing a solid
foundation for data integration and management. Here are the basic options:
1. Appliances. Perhaps the easiest way a mid-market company can deploy a BI solution is
to purchase a data warehousing appliance to run its new existing BI software. Vendors
simply wheel these preconfigured and tuned hardware-software units into your data
center, plug them in, and they are ready to load your data. You still need to create a data
model, map source data into the model and build reports and dashboards, but appliances
dramatically simplify the process of deploying BI solutions. And because most use the
latest hardware technologies, they offer high levels of price-performance compared with
existing solutions. On the downside, if customers outgrow the appliance, they typically
need to buy another one and migrate their data and reports to the new machine.
Data warehousing appliances come in all shapes and sizes. For instance, Dell offers a Quick-
start Data Warehouse Appliance geared to the mid-market at a very cost-effective price-
performance level. The appliance comes with a Dell 12th generation PowerEdge server and
pre-installed software, including the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 data warehouse appliance
license, which is preconfigured and tuned to run on the Dell hardware. Unique among mid-
market appliance offerings, Dell also bundles cloud-based data integration capability (Dell
Boomi) and consulting services, including installation and training to get the first BI applica-
tion up and running successfully. Dell customers can purchase add-on consulting services to
help them further develop a data strategy and architecture. All customers have to do is build
reports and dashboards using third-party tools, which most companies already have.
2. Packaged Analytical Software Solutions. Another option, that is very complementary
to an appliance, is to purchase a packaged software solution, which can be deployed
on an analytical appliance or an existing server. These solutions are either generic or
domain-specific applications geared to a particular industry or functional area. Some pull
data directly from source systems, while others create a local data mart. Generic BI pack-
ages bundle reporting, analysis and dashboarding capabilities along with lightweight data
integration services to populate reports with clean, consistent data. Domain-specific BI
packages contain predefined data models, source system mappings and reports tailored
to a specific industry or functional area. Most also include data infrastructure compo-
nents, such as data integration tools and databases, that create the software equivalent of
a load-and-go environment. For instance, many of Microsoft’s partners deliver industry- or
functional-specific BI solutions built with Microsoft’s suite of BI software, including SQL
Server, Reporting Services, Analysis Services, Integration Services, Microsoft Office and
SharePoint.
The benefit of packaged software is that it speeds the time it takes to deploy a BI solution, thus
reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction. The downside is that customers still need
to provide the hardware and storage to run the packages. This means they either need to reuse
existing systems with extra capacity or purchase new hardware or even an appliance.

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3. Cloud Solutions. An increasing number of vendors offer cloud-based BI solutions. As
described in the RBC Wealth Management case above, cloud-based BI solutions eliminate
the need for companies to purchase and maintain hardware and software. Instead,
customers pay a monthly subscription fee, usually based on the number of users. This
eliminates capital outlays and creates a predictable operating budget for the BI solution.
Cloud-based BI solutions are ideal for organizations that don’t have a data center or a large
IT staff or internal expertise in building BI solutions. Most cloud BI vendors offer packaged
solutions (see above) to get customers up and running quickly. Or they build custom solutions
as a consulting engagement. However, there are also downsides to cloud BI solutions. For
starters, customers must move internal data to a hosted data center in the cloud. This can be
problematic if the data is sensitive or there is a lot to move on a daily basis. Also, when BI
is implemented in the cloud, the data volumes are typically not greater than 1TB, and work-
loads are much simpler. Therefore, the process for performing ad hoc queries and standard
reports is not as effortless as it is outside of a cloud environment.
As you can see, mid-market vendors have several options for deploying low-cost BI solutions.
Many BI vendors are now eager to work with mid-market companies and tailor products and
services to their needs. This translates into lower costs and faster deployments with greater
end-user satisfaction.
Recommendations
Now that you understand the landscape for mid-market BI solutions, what should you do?
What are the next steps? Here are a set of recommendations:
1. Have a vision for data. To succeed, executives need a vision for data and a commitment
to fact-based decision-making. They need to recognize that data is fast becoming
a competitive differentiator. This can be hard to do, especially in a fast-moving, time-
constrained mid-market company. But the key is to treat data as a corporate asset. This
involves defining data definitions, governing their evolution and consolidating shared data
in a BI platform geared to providing high-performance reporting and analysis applications.
2. Change perceptions. Second, executives need to recognize that BI no longer needs to
involve launching expensive, complex projects. They need to understand that BI vendors
now tailor products and services to mid-market companies because this is a growth
market for them. BI is now a buyer’s market for mid-market companies.
3. Start small. The best way to achieve success with data is to start small. Select a single
report or dashboarding application that can be delivered fast but provides sizable business
benefit. With a quick win, executives are more inclined to devote the proper attention and
resources to building out the BI program into a strategic initiative.
4. Focus on data first. The heart and soul of a BI solution is the data. Without clean,
integrated, trustworthy data, users will not use a BI solution. Therefore, pay particular
attention to your data and the platform it runs on. Establish a strong data foundation
to give your BI solution the best chance of success.

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5. Evaluate mid-market solutions. It’s important to select the right approach and platform
to run BI solutions on, whether it’s an appliance, cloud or custom build for the platform.
Then, select a vendor to deliver one of these approaches. Make sure the vendor tailors
the product to the mid-market, knows your domain and offers reasonable pricing and
support. And keep in mind that some appliances include more components than others.
6. BI is a journey. Unlike operational applications (e.g., enterprise resource planning or
customer relationship management), BI applications must continuously adapt to changing
business conditions to answer user questions. This requires ongoing care and feeding of
the BI solution, especially the data that fuels the insights. So, select a BI service provider
who is willing and able to partner with your company for the long haul.
Microsoft and Dell believe that data warehousing, BI and analytics should not be exclusive to
large enterprises; that they should be easy to use and cost-effective enough for all organizations.
To make that view a reality, they have partnered to bring to market a data warehouse appliance
designed for mid-market and departmental users.
The Dell Quickstart Data Warehouse Appliance is a powerful platform which takes advantage
of innovations in the new 12th generation Dell servers and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 DBMS to
maximize capacity and performance in a small footprint. It then goes a step beyond other data
warehouse appliances by including a cloud-based data integration service (Dell Boomi) as well
as a start-up service that gets clients off to a successful start along with a quarterly healthcheck
that ensures ongoing success. For more information about the Dell Quickstart Data Warehouse
Appliance, visit http://www.dell.com/quickstartdw.

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About Dell
Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and
services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.
com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is a worldwide leader in software, services
and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
By Wayne Eckerson, Director of Research, TechTarget
About the Author
Wayne Eckerson has been a thought leader in the data warehousing, business
intelligence (BI) and performance management fields since 1995. He has conducted
numerous in-depth research studies and is the author of the best-selling book Per-
formance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business. He is
a noted keynote speaker and blogger and he consults and conducts workshops on
business analytics, performance dashboards and BI, among other topics. For many
years, Eckerson served as director of education and research at The Data Warehousing
Institute, where he oversaw the company’s content and training programs and chaired
its BI Executive Summit.
Eckerson is director of research at TechTarget, where he writes a popular weekly blog
called Wayne’s World, which focuses on industry trends and examines best practices
in the application of BI. Eckerson is also president of BI Leader Consulting and founder
of BI Leadership Forum, a network of BI directors who meet regularly to exchange ideas
about best practices in BI and educate the larger BI community.