BI Migration and consolidation initiatives are growing in popularity as enterprises grapple with years of accumulated technical debt across tools. AI is at the top of everyone’s mind and contributes to a need to build faster, leaner, and smarter governance structures.
Our team at BIChart saw firsthand while attending Fabricon earlier this year, and we expect a bigger crowd! We believe Microsoft is one of multiple safe bets for enterprise leaders wanting to build an enterprise AI / BI center of gravity.
In the last year, we have watched the number of services, products, M&A activity, and interest for migrations increase dramatically.
Why BI Migrations Happen
Mergers and acquisitions are logical and common reasons for consolidation and migration of business applications, data, and BI platforms. This is part of the consolidation and transition plan, where teams, data, and technology are co-mingled and integrated.
Transformation from on-premises to cloud, to “modern data” cloud was a common driver for migrating to modern data and BI/analytics platforms over the last 10 years. Today, Microsoft, Databricks, Snowflake, and Google Cloud Platform continue to shake up what we consider “centers of gravity” for data. Microsoft, Google, and even AWS provide a “one-stop shop” for data, analytics, and now AI.
Self-service analytics consolidation is a common scenario for migrations, as enterprises accumulate thousands of reports and dashboards over time. The total cost of ownership to maintain multiple BI platforms negates the incremental short-term gains realized in speed and ease of building.
Strategic alignment for AI is a new scenario, thanks to the advancement of AI in the last 5 years. These advancements are inspiring a new generation of technology solutions that incorporate:
- Computer vision
- Conversational user experiences with LLMs
- AI-powered coding.
- Reasoning models
What is Driving Leaders toward BI Migration
As we talk to more enterprise data and analytics leaders, there are patterns that we are seeing and hearing.
- Total cost of ownership for managing multiple analytics platforms has grown and left un-checked without material improvement in adoption.
- Managing thousands of self-service BI reports and dashboards without proper governance and lifecycle management capabilities is a non-starter.
- Data and analytics tool sprawl is a big problem. One data leader advised that for every new data tool introduced, two are targeted for retirement.
- No one universally agrees on who will deliver the ultimate AI / BI solution. Multiple leaders have told us they are moving to platforms they deem the least risky over the next 5 years.
Why Microsoft Fabric is a Safe Bet for BI Migration
At BIChart, we are highly focused on removing friction for customers to move to Microsoft Power BI as their primary Business Intelligence platform. This is our entry point into the marketplace. We created a Migration Guide for Analytics leaders to help with planning.
What’s Next for BI Migration?
We are always looking ahead and working toward “what’s next.” AI + BI is the next step that every enterprise is looking to capitalize on. In our opinion, there isn’t a clear leader yet. Our role in the world of AI / BI is to streamline movement and re-use of your investments so you can focus on transforming your business instead of technology assets!
