Actionista! is a suite of business intelligence
(BI) tools that lets anyone perform analysis.
Business analysis is
essential for
developing management strategies, but
sophisticated and abstract analysis tools
require expert
knowledge to operate. True to
form, at JustSystems we lowered the barrier
to entry and created “analysis for
everyone.”
An Idea Originating from the
Issues
Noticed in Interactions
with Customers
What prompted the development of BI tools in the first place was an “issue” noticed by a sales representative in
their interactions with customers. Information such as the sales data and inventory information created and
obtained by customers regularly steadily built up each day. Huge volumes of data and information accumulated
in the process. While customers wanted to boost sales and make business improvements, in reality many
companies were experiencing difficulties in getting the most out of that information. They faced a
dilemma in
what solutions to use. Excel had its own
shortfalls: it lacked functionality, some tasks were cumbersome, and
some operations were overly
dependent on individual skills. BI tools meanwhile
were costly, hard to use, and
even the business
divisions that required them were not able to fully
utilize them. To solve that dilemma, we felt
there
was a business opportunity in developing BI tools
that anyone could use with simple operations.
Why JustSystems Refused to
Compete on the Basis of
its Area of Specialty
JustSystems spent three years brining the Actionista! BI tool to market. During that
process, some suggested that JustSystems
should give text mining (text analysis), one
of its characteristic strengths, a central
focus in the product.
After many twists and turns,
it was
eventually decided that JustSystems would
settle on a policy of attacking the BI market
front-and-center, and the product was
released as a pure BI tool.
This was because of another unique trait of
JustSystems: Targeting people who had an
impression of BI tools as difficult to operate
and hard to master, we proposed “a BI tool
that anyone can use without expert
knowledge through intuitive operation.”
Striving to Make “Analysis for
Everyone” the Next
Commonplace Thing
Our pitch, that “without expert knowledge
and through simple operations, anyone can
create a great-looking dashboard (a format
used for analysis),” resonated with many
customers, but it also revealed a problem:
since customers lacked analysis skills, they
didn’t know what kind of dashboard they
should make. To address this customer
feedback, we further evolved Actionista!
with the addition of pre-made templates that
would automatically generate analysis
dashboards by simply selecting what you
wanted to do, such as “sales analysis,”
“inventory analysis” or “cost analysis.” In
doing so, we gave the world BI tools that
opened the door to even business people
unfamiliar with analysis, across all
departments. Eventually, any employee
being able to perform analysis would
suddenly become commonplace. While
hoping this will become the case for an
increasing number of companies, we will
continue to evolve the product as we strive
to create new value.
