Learning BI Co-existence from Sled Dogs

On a recent trip to see the Polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada (something to add to your bucket list), we took a side trip to go mushing with sled dogs.

This was an amazing experience and apart from the exhilarating ride itself, I was totally fascinated by how these 6 small huskies could pull a sled with 3 people on a 1-mile circuit through the snowy woods with amazing coordination and, seemingly, without much effort.

As I chatted with the musher, she explained that the dogs are carefully paired and selected for their attributes.

In a six-dog team, the dogs are harnessed in three pairs. The two nearest the sled are the wheel-dogs, the middle huskies are the team dogs and the front two are the leaders.

The wheel-dogs are normally larger dogs and provide the power. The dogs in the middle are the constant workhorses; they should be looking forwards and pulling eagerly without turning around or barking at the dogs around them. These speed-dogs provide the stamina and regulate the team’s speed, while the leaders are usually smaller and provide the intelligence.

If you tried to create a team using all wheel dogs or team dogs, you may get lost and if you had a team all leaders, you may not get very far.

This got me thinking about how the world of Business Intelligence has been in this state of co-existence for a number of years now where most organizations use a combination of different BI tools to satisfy their BI needs.

The wheel dogs are like your semantic layer that will power your BI requests. The team dogs are like your BI reporting tool that is the constant workhorse pushing out data and reports . The leader dogs are your BI exploration and data visualization tool that provides intelligent insights and helps direct your decisions.

So what I see today, is a lot of organizations using the BusinessObjects semantic layer as their wheel dogs, BusinessObjects Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports as their Team dogs and either PowerBI or Tableau as their leader dogs.

This is very smart and provides a perfect co-existence and a winning BI dog team.

Trying to use PowerBI or Tableau for BI reporting will not take you very far. Using BusinessObjects for data discovery and visualization is possible but comes up short with newer technologies like AI.

Many organizations have also found ways to leverage the BusinessObjects reports and semantic layer by using Odata connections or tools like InfoBurst PowerBI and InfoBurst Tableau in PowerBI and Tableau. This not only saves time and uses trusted data flows but it can also help fast track user adoption of your leader dog tools.

As I mentioned earlier, BI co-existence is the new normal today and I really do not see that changing any time soon.

I know some people try to label BI reporting tools like BusinessObjects as legacy but the truth is there is nothing out there to effectively replace them today and , until there is, I suggest you keep your winning co-existing dog sled team.