The topic of TCO is always one that generates a lot of discussion within companies.  When dealing with mid-market companies specifically, it can be even harder to evaluate overall TCO for BI.  Aside from fixed expenses such as software costs, maintenance, support, licensing, and potential hardware requirements, organizations also face a lot of unknowns. What will the real value of the solution be in terms of saving costs, people hour reduction, and overall gains to the organization? How can decision makers identify potential drawbacks based on type of solution choice?  The list of possible questions are endless, but the places to go for answers aren’t always available for smaller organizations looking at BI for the first time.

There are many mid-market companies that have taken the plunge and that have fairly mature business intelligence environments.  However, other organizations are confused in terms of where to begin.  Hopefully over the next several months, we will start to uncover how small and mid-sized companies can get the most out of BI and analytics.  Whether this means looking at initial costs or expenses overtime, or looking at actual business benefits and how to sell those benefits to colleagues within the organization.