BI vendor Business Objects has provided a sneak preview of a new Business Intelligence product it plans to release in Q4 which the software company claims will provide unprecedented ease of use for non-technical business users.

Business Intelligence systems have been with us in one form  or another for a few decades. However, usability has always been an issue. According to Business Objects, its BusinessObjects Intelligent Question product delivers a breakthrough innovation that allows anyone to intuitively ask business questions and receive correct answers, without the need to build a query or know the underlying systems or data.

Intelligent Question’s structured questioning environment allows people to select from a series of options to create anything from simple to very complex business questions. For example, an executive at a retail organisation could ask: What are my top 15 customers, based on average weekly spend for my stores over the past 12 months? Or, a supplier for a computer hardware company could theoretically craft a question via an extranet to ask: Which of my parts have experienced a 10 per cent increase in demand this month over last month?

With Intelligent Question, as people select from the preset options, the remaining choices are automatically filtered to guarantee that the user can only create an “intelligent question.”
 
“Once again, Business Objects is driving a paradigm shift in the business intelligence industry, in terms of information access,” said John  Schwarz, CEO of Business Objects.  “We understand that to truly expand the adoption of business intelligence you need to make products simpler.  It requires a business intelligence interface that works the way people think, and allows them to quickly ask and answer their most critical business questions. BusinessObjects Intelligent Question is the first solution that will finally break down the barrier to broader BI adoption, and truly meet the needs of those users who have not experienced the benefits of BI because they were intimidated by the complexity.”