Business Intelligence

samfloy~13 September 2017

Business Intelligence is a relatively new term to describe a fundamental concept: getting a better understanding of your organisation.

Business leaders have always sought to understand “what’s actually going on” in their team or company, and the traditional methods have been things like compiling a monthly report, or stitching together a dashboard.

These are laborious processes and, as a result, the level of insights almost always falls short of what’s useful, and regularly comes through too infrequently to get a sense of making a sensible decision.

Blind decision making

The result is that many organisations are forced to make their decisions based on a feeling of what’s the right to do.

They don’t have the information at hand to make an informed decision, and as such try to progress by guessing their way on what the right thing to do is.

Missed opportunities

What this means is that are likely areas of your business which are being underutilised which, with adequate attention, could result in a step-change transformation.

Typically there will be particular sections which contribute disproportionately to your company’s profitability, and others to the cost. Despite this, they often receive proportional levels of resource.

Your highest value clients might be leaving your service, spelling doom a few months down the line but, without being able to get a regular grip on this, it could all come crashing down too late.

Most businesses feel they are operating in the dark

and as a result are hampering their ability to grow, or become more effective.

The information is there

What’s changed over the past few years is both the volume of information being collected, and the ability to translate it into something useful.

Whereas businesses of the past were run from pen and paper, with more business moving online, many more of the interactions are being collected and stored in databases which act as a repository of everything a company does.

The issue is taking the stacks of data which is held, and turning it into something valuable, and which you can take action on.

What I offer

The company I run takes the data a company is storing and makes it useful to them.

In some cases, organisations won’t know the value of the information that they are sitting on, and in others they know that they should be “data driven” but are struggling with the execution.

In the same way that you outsource your bookkeeping to an accountant, or legals to a lawyer, we come in as a trusted advisor to ensure you’re getting the most value possible for your business.

What this really means

Stepping down from the high level theory, here are some of the practical areas in which we can help

What does it look like

This differs depending on each company’s set up, however it is always with a view of making insights as intuitive and easy to access as possible.

Reporting and Dashboards

The backbone of the service we offer is improved reporting.

Every manager has to report on something and, when it’s taking them hours each week, this is time away from what they were hired to do.

Through smart automation techniques, we can typically turn laborious reporting procedures into streamlined, auto-refreshing reports which can be drilled down into to get insights not possible before.

[[GIF – graph shifting]]

All this means your employees are spending more time acting on insights, rather than compiling insights.

[[Expertise]]

Business Intelligence is not just about representing your current reports in a more effective manner, but about ensuring that you are asking the right questions of your business.

With our ability to show you what is possible from the data you’re sitting on there then becomes a whole host of other metrics, targets and reports which become possible for you to see at your fingertips.

Trying to navigate this fog of data can be overwhelming

There is a whole science around ensuring that you are looking at the right KPIs for your organisation so that you can know in advance where issues might arise, and be sure that you’re tracking the right trends.

Of course, it is possible to read up on the subject, and try to fit this understanding into your busy working schedule.

When it comes to the heavy lifting though, we have found that our experience across various industries, and the fact this is our core competency, means that we can offer real value to businesses setting up their reporting and dashboards.

Flexible for you

This process can almost always be managed remotely, meaning you don’t need to be confined to travelling across town for meetings, or be spending time and resource maintaining a physical, permanent presence in the office.

With an introductory call and typically a conversation with your CTO/ IT Manager we can begin showing you the types of insights possible, to see if this is something you’d like to take further.

If it is, we’ll set out a scope of work, organise regular check-ins, and get clarifications on the best way to present things for you.

A big part of our offering the peace of mind of that we can just get this done for you.

Moving forward we’ll ensure your reports and dashboards are kept up to date, and be your trusted counsel if there are other areas of the business you’d like to know more about.

What’s more, through us using our years of business analysis experience we can provide strategic suggestions and pointers for areas of improvement or opportunity.

 

~~ DOES THIS SOUND INTERESTING? ~~

If you, or someone you know, might be interested in getting a greater understanding on what is happening in their business, then we should talk.

Developments in the industry have meant it’s now much more possible to get a handle on what is happening within an organisation, however without the expertise to bridge that gap, it can be easy to feel left behind.

I can help get you set up using the latest practices in intuitive and effective reporting, and then make the most of these insights.

Feel free to drop me a message view the contact page.