What are the most effective ways to increase user adoption of a BI system?

In my experience, there are three stages to consider if you are to succeed with any BI solution: (1) ensure parity; (2) migrate consumption; (3) retire superseded systems. All play a role in user adoption. If parity is not ensured users will resist- and "parity" does not mean identical results, because oftentimes you will find deficiencies with the solution that is being replaced. You have to show the user community that the BI solution is as good or better than the status quo. To migrate consumption requires training and support, but you must create "burning platforms" that clearly show users their status quo solution will not remain. Finally, the status quo solutions must be retired, leaving the users with only the better solution.

Fomentar la adopción de un sistema de BI implica una sólida capacitación, interfaces intuitivas, demostraciones impactantes de valor y una comunicación clara sobre los beneficios prácticos para los usuarios. La clave radica en hacer que la experiencia sea accesible y valiosa desde el principio.

To boost user adoption of a BI system like SAP BW/HANA, focus on creating a user-friendly interface and providing tailored training and support. Enable customization for personalization and demonstrate the system's value with real-life examples. Engage stakeholders in development, ensuring system performance and reliability. Emphasize mobile accessibility and continuously improve based on user feedback. Foster a data-driven culture through leadership endorsement and effective communication about the benefits, updates, and best practices. Combining these strategies can significantly enhance the system's adoption and impact within an organization.

This is actually one of the most important aspect as it increases ownership by the intended consumer. It's important to ensure what you are building address their pain points, provide a lasting reporting solutions to them and is visually impressive to them yet insightful.

A BI system typically serves a mix of different user groups. Each user group has its particular information consumption needs, preferences and patterns. Exploratory analytics, or explanatory? Strategic decision making, or operational? Reporting, or analysis? Realtime? Adoption of the BI system hinges on its ability to meet these diverse needs and patterns. So, you basically can’t involve your users early and often enough. But above all: the data it uses and the information it provides must be self-explanatory and trustworthy. If that box is not checked, your implementation effort is doomed to fail

It is also important to consider user profiles or consumer profiles when considering customisation. While the technical or operational staff would prefer a detailed in-depth experience for their specific business, channel or market, the executives require more summarised insights along with the charts and tables which can be used as talking points during executive discussions. Leveraging NLP and NLG capabilities can help create those custom insights to facilitate adoption across the levels of an organisation.