BI | Drowning in Excel reports. Employee retention. Some unexpected benefits from deploying a business intelligence platform like Power BI and Qlik.

Here is one recent example of how a business intelligence tool can deliver more than just new operational insights.

• The client: Multiple systems, multiple sites, time and labour-intensive manual reporting

• The result: Timely, automated reports, new insights with an instant feedback portal

• Next Steps: Deployed to mobile with chat, user accountability and predictive analytics

Managing a business is very much about the people that you work with. The clients that rely on our services to run their business and the employees at Advance that are responsible for delivering these business systems. Clients and employees both need to have a good level of customer satisfaction or relationships can fall apart.

It was interesting to hear from my peers about situations where talented employees have left their jobs because of frustrations caused by data overload and using a process that is inefficient, manual, slow and often frustrating. There are times when work will be challenging and that is a part of life, but throwing more labour into a manual process to get the result is not a good long-term solution.

Companies that foster employee growth through technology innovation will improve staff retention. We try to adopt innovative tools early that are good value and this means our team is always learning new skills. The users of these solutions on the client side are eager to adopt a new system if it makes their work life easier and more productive.

Employee satisfaction and retention was an unexpected benefit from deploying a successful business intelligence platform.

Below is a BI solution we have been working on which is quite a common example where daily reporting is needed and there simply aren’t enough hours in a day to manually pull all of the data from the various branches and the 30+ systems. This type of reporting will cause frustration to any employee, especially if they are tasked with manually accessing each branch early every morning to build a complete view of the businesses performance.

The Challenge

• Multiple sites, often in the double digits. 30 sites are not uncommon

• Multiple disparate business systems across different locations, systems like Xero, MYOB, SAP, many others for HR functions and client facing systems

• Be aware that although powerful, API’s are not built equally and something that performs well in a mature system like SAP may not provide the same data and consistency in something like MYOB. The ability to manipulate the data is a critical aspect of connecting multiple data sources

• Time-consuming and labour-intensive manual reporting

• The window for generating daily reporting not big enough to generate reports on time

• Sites spread across multiple geographies and time zones

• Manual, static Microsoft Excel reports to consolidate data into PowerPoint and then emailed each day

versus

Using Traditional Reporting Encountered Some Of These Challenges

• Hardly scalable and very prone to human error

• Time-consuming, manual and inefficient

• Not a lot of fun. Repetitive tasks

• Staff turnover is high

• Inefficient with no automation

• Slow

• Missed opportunities

• No forward projection or predictive analytics

• Linking performance to industry systems that benchmark against competitors in the same industry was not possible

• Reporting can look inconsistent and not well branded when required for management reporting

A Better Solution

• A business intelligence solution connecting all of the systems and data into a single verified view of the truth

• Automated, consistent, branded and uniformly formatted reports and dashboards

• Dynamic insights that can be queried, drilled down for further detail

• Automatic red flag warnings for KPI’s that are underperforming or outliers

• Opportunities for further growth in positive KPI’s

• Data pulled directly from each system, automatically calculated, verified and disturbed in minutes

• Manageable distribution via internal systems like Slack or email to a selected user or group based on title or credentials

• Connected to external data sources such as local weather to provide further insights and predictable analytics

• Easily managed by employees without any special training

• Portal for reporting commentary enabling stakeholder feedbacks

• Secure and only the right people have access

The Results

• Finance now quickly generate required reporting each day for 9:00AM reviews

• Holistic reports for entire business across all 30 locations

• New insights for things like revenue vs payroll

• Automated reports are distributed each day to key stakeholders

• Increased efficiency, productivity and employee satisfaction

• Finance can focus on actions versus generating reports

• Minimal manual reporting – there is always some needed and the human touch.

• Consistent presentation with clear branding

• Instant feedback on the numbers via comments on a secure portal

Final Thoughts

A well thought out BI implementation will connect all these business systems and inputs to build accurate business reports and dashboards. Smarter insights and visualisations with automated reporting will reduce risk and provide the feedback needed to manage a business effectively with a holistic view.

Enabling your team with valuable tools will teach them new skills and a reduction in manual inefficient processes will lead to better job satisfaction.

Tools like Qlik and Power BI are powerful, they will pull together all the systems so you can start building meaningful insights. Qlik is remarkably good at this. By linking to virtually any data source will let you manipulate data to build reports without the need for a data warehouse. The benefit is that it is more cost effective, quick to get answers, often within days not weeks. We have connected to a clients systems in a demonstration right there on the spot and built a report from a live system which is very compelling. Speed to new insights and value is a key benefit when using a tool like Qlik.

A Common Question

How do you get started? The first step to any project is getting access to the data.

If you would like to know more or have any questions about BI, get in touch with us here. We are passionate business intelligence experts.

CONTACT OUR SALES TEAM - NIK VILLIOS | ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

PHONE: +618 8238 6521

MOBILE: +61 408 800 753

EMAIL: NVILLIOS@ADVANCE.NET.AU

BI | Spike In Demand For Microsoft Power BI - Here's Why

We review and analyse our enquiries each week to see what our clients are interested in and what challenges the broader market is trying to solve. Business intelligence and new insights is our thing after all.

Unsurprisingly there has been a big spike in the demand for business intelligence solutions, the bulk being for Microsoft Power BI and Qlik.

One of the projects we are working on this week is to provide a detailed financial reporting system from the popular Xero accounting system. Xero is a great tool but our clients are telling us that they cannot easily get the level of detail and analysis they need. The data is there but there is no easy way to get more complex insights. Power BI can help.

If you would like to know more about business intelligence or Microsoft Power BI and what it can do for your business, reach us here

Here are some of the reasons why there is a demand for Microsoft Power BI

• Peer Insights Matter - Microsoft has a 4.3 rating at Gartner Peer Insights with over 1300 reviews today and received the Customers Choice 2018 award from Gartner. This is important not just because Gartner is a leading research and advisory company but also because the very people that use the tool have provided a review. Look for the genuine reviews, it’s one good source for critical honest feedback. Take a look here.

• Australia has a big Microsoft presence and existing clients can access Power BI at a low cost. The desktop version is free for individual users. This makes it pretty attractive to consider using Power BI.

  Wide User Base Appeal - Power BI is targetted at non-data scientists, business analysts as well as power users like developers and data scientists, this means it appeals to a big audience. We work with customers that are power users and self taught BI users, generating their own powerful insights for their business units. The support community is very active and helpful.

• Power BI can easily capture and assemble data and access diverse data sources, particularly other Microsoft tools and platforms.

• Tight integration with Office 365 products, Azure cloud, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, SQL DB, Excel, and SharePoint.

• Analysts have judged Power BI to be a leader. Don’t buy into the hype but also don’t discount genuine endorsements. Current users are also some of the best people to give you an honest review.

• Microsoft has been investing in its Marketing efforts globally and this is creating awareness and demand, this is not a bad thing. Microsoft believe in their product which is backed up by monthly enhancements and updates. Many integration companies and end users agree. There is real investment in this tool.

These are just some of the reasons why people are looking at Power BI. Microsoft is investing heavily in the tool to stay ahead of its competitors and is releasing major updates regularly.

Is Power BI the right tool for you? There are many things to consider and we will discuss this in an upcoming blog. Which BI tool is right for you.

Below is a great overview of the major Power BI updates for March: