A longtime salesperson of BI products says he weighs the average decision to buy this way:
- About 50 percent of the decision — whether to buy any BI at all or which product to buy — is based on expected ROI. This part always comes first.
- About 20 percent is about career. Someone — usually an IT person — figures, “Even if it’s a bomb and I get laid off, I can say I know Cognos/Microstrategy/Oracle/SAS …” Or else the person figures, “This looks like the next cool thing, and I could be on the ground floor.”
- The last 30 percent is about sex or fear — that is, some sexy feature or fear of implementation. This might include, “I used this thing at my last job, so I know how to make it work here.”
