Chapter 4: Marketing BusinessObjects

---

Overview

In looking at the chapter title, you might respond, 'Marketing BusinessObjects? That's something the vendor does! Nothing to do with my implementation.' It's got everything to do with your implementation and is the one technique that will help you boost usage, user satisfaction, and ROI with little to no cash investment. It does, however, require an investment in attitude and in making sure a marketing approach gets incorporated into your project plan.

Many people assume they do not need to market BusinessObjects. It's easy to assume the tool should sell itself, especially if you are implementing it in response to users' requests. Keep in mind, though, that only a handful of users may have specifically requested BusinessObjects and been involved in the tool selection. For all the other users, you need a strategy of defining what you will deliver and how you will communicate those deliverables to your different user segments.

At the 2002 BusinessObjects user conference, participants said getting business users to use the data warehouse already built was their number one priority. Developing a marketing plan can help you achieve this goal. Still not convinced? In this chapter, I'll describe one case in which a marketing approach helped boost BusinessObjects usage five-fold within a three-month period. Marketing can be an uncomfortable concept for many IT people, so enlist help from your company's internal marketing or public relations department.

---