Traditional thinking when considering an enterprise business intelligence software purchase is for IT own it, operate it, and be wholly responsible for everything involved with it. Factor in a challenging economy, little room for adding headcount, and internal resources spread thin on multiple projects. If this seems like too much of a burden to undertake, but you’d still like to reap the benefits of an enterprise BI solution then it may be time to think outside the box and explore the idea of having your solution hosted and managed externally.
As we work with our customers, one important thing we have observed is that line of business customers in organizations of all sizes are trying to become less reliant on IT and more self-sufficient. Their major concern is the amount of internal resources and infrastructure they will need to dedicate to a solution. Although IBM designs their products to be easy to manage internally, sometimes having dedicated resources to manage the solution is not feasible.
