A few years ago, I was on vacation in Egypt with my family. Our first major tourist stop was the Great Pyramids at Giza, one of the original Seven Wonders of the World and a sight not to be missed. As we left the parking area to walk towards the pyramids, we were surrounded by dozens of Egyptians with camels offering us rides on these exotic creatures at “very reasonable” prices. I politely told them I was not interested, but then they offered that we could just sit on the camel and have our photograph taken. I turned around to discuss this with my wife, but she was surrounded by another group of Egyptians offering her their camels.

As I turned back, I was shocked to see my 10 year-old daughter on top of a camel waving and calling out “Look at me, Dad!”

A moment later, my 11 year-old son was right next to her, on top of another camel, saying “C’mon Dad, you should try this.”

As I walked over to them, my path was quickly blocked by another camel which was made to sit down in front of me with two toothless, smiling Egyptians urging me to sit on it. Before I could think, I was sitting up on a third camel alongside my two children. By this time, my wife had managed to break away from the group surrounding her only to stop dead in her tracks in utter disbelief at seeing me and the kids atop three camels! 

“What on earth are you doing up there?,” she cried out.

“We were just going to have our picture taken,” I replied. 

“Really?,” she responded,

“Then why are they leading you down the path to the pyramids?” 

She was right, they were leading us away.

“Stop!” I yelled out, but they just ignored me. My wife ran around in front of the lead camel, forcing all three camels to stop. She then took on her alter ego as a Tasmanian Devil and quickly got the attention of the three Egyptians leading the camels. After a passionate exchange, my wife turned to me,

“Did you agree on a price for having your photograph taken on the camel?,” she yelled at me.

“No, it was never even mentioned that we had to pay,” I feebly replied.

“And how do you think you’re going to negotiate sitting on top of a camel?” 

She had an excellent point. The fee was for being on the camel and I was already on the camel before even finding out how much it cost. On top of that, each camel was owned by a different Egyptian, so now I had to negotiate with three people individually instead of one – all from on top of a camel!

So, after another ten minutes of frustrating negotiations, we settled on a price which I later found out was three times more than I should have paid.

As we wandered off down to see the Sphinx, I noticed many other tourists who were not having the same problems we had encountered, simply because they had an Egyptian guide. Me, in my infinite wisdom, insisted that we did not need a guide, because I knew a lot more about Ancient Egypt than they did. That might be true, but I certainly did not know more about dealing with Egyptians and the going rates for camel rides than they did.

I started thinking about all those businesses I have encountered who have purchased more Business Intelligence software than they need, or, where the software has never been deployed and ended up as “shelfware”. Those CIO’s, Directors or Managers who made the decision to buy that software were probably negotiating from on top of a camel. Like me, they probably thought that since they know software and technology, they did not need a guide to help them. However, Business Intelligence software has become very comprehensive both in terms of functionality and licensing. You really need a guide or expert to help you navigate through matching your exact requirements and needs against the BI software that will best match those requirements efficiently and cost-effectively. The best way to deploy BI software is incrementally – start small, and realize the return on investment, add more, realize the return on investment and so on. Likewise, the best way to buy BI software is incrementally.

Once you have seen the benefits and success, then it makes good business and financial sense to grow the deployment. 

So, how do you find a good BI guide?

As I discovered in Egypt, not all guides take you down the right path. Well, a good guide will always adopt the incremental approach, not just in terms of what you purchase and deploy, but also in terms of the way they deliver their own advice and consulting services. A good BI consultant needs to prove their value before you spend a lot of money and just end up with a boiler-plate report that tells you everything you knew already. They should be willing to give you a 1 or 2 day BI evaluation for free and, if you like what you hear and see, then a more complete BI environment audit should be offered and delivered at a reasonable rate. Do not be fooled into thinking that the more you pay, the better quality and results of the service. That is rarely the case in my experience.

Of course, references are helpful especially if they are recent and come from people or companies that you know.

The best way forward to get the most out of Business Intelligence in your business is to take small steps and use a good, experienced and recommended consultant.

I know on my next trip to Egypt, I will be getting a good guide and I doubt you will ever see me negotiating from on top  of a camel again!