Uncovering the Hidden Costs of BI Report Scheduling Software

If Gartner is right, your 2011 enterprise budget looks slightly better than it did in 2010. But while budgets are up, total cost of ownership (TCO) will continue to dominate many IT purchasing decisions.

When calculating the TCO of a BI report generation and scheduling software, purchase price is just one factor to consider. Focus strictly on price, and that good deal can become a maintenance nightmare if the software does not offer the basic features you expect:

• Slight changes to a column in a report template wastes IT time when previously-scheduled jobs need to be reworked,
• Rudimentary scheduling capabilities force IT staff to create a BI system of “workarounds,”
• Missing features like exception handling and web access delay the delivery of crucial information to decision makers, and
• Lack of security (e.g. password protection, encryption) creates an opportunity for information breaches.

Licensing is another factor that significantly affects TCO. Some of the larger BI vendors charge their customers the same amount of money, regardless of the number of features a customer plans to use. This all-or-nothing licensing approach leaves many IT shops working overtime to justify the purchase price to higher-ups. An a la carte licensing scheme like ChristianSteven -- where customers pay only for the features they use -- reduces TCO and accelerates return on investment.

Don’t forget about third-party licensing costs, too. Given that BI report scheduling software automates the creation of Crystal Reports and Microsoft SQL Server reports, you’ll naturally need licenses for these products. However, automation software that runs on a desktop is more costly long-term, especially if you plan to let business users manage their own reports and schedules. A scheduling software that runs in a web browser lowers TCO by eliminating third-party licensing costs and IT resources required to install and support desktop installations.

One final way to dramatically lower TCO is to automate your business processes with the report scheduling software. Event-based and data-driven triggers, alerts, and wide variety of report formats and delivery mechanisms can be tapped to automate and proactively manage invoices, sales processes, supply chains, customer support tickets, and more.

Virgin Mobile built two applications around ChristianSteven’s event and data-driven capabilities. The first application allows users to run reports on demand by sending a request via e-mail. The second application maximizes sales by sending alerts to the supply chain team when stock levels fall below set levels.

Likewise, Zintel saved over $100,000 using ChristianSteven as the backbone for their call reporting service, and EMPR® Australia uses ChristianSteven to manage customer credit and limits in real-time. ChristianSteven’s flexibility is important, they say, because without it, potentially high-ROI projects would die on the white board during the cost analysis.

ChristianSteven’s report scheduling and business process automation software works with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, Crystal Reports, and Microsoft Access. Watch online demos on YouTube or download your free, 30-day evaluation copy from the ChristianSteven website. Have a partnership question? Send an e-mail to partners@christiansteven.com.

Back To Articles