Six Signs You Are Ready for BI

7/21/2019 Six Signs You Are Ready for BI

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Six Signs

it’s Timeto Take the BI Plunge



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The problem

The approach

The solution

There are six common red

ags that signal it’s time to

better manage your data

so you can make more

intelligent decisions faster.

If any of these signs

apply to the way you do

business today, it’s time to

take the BI plunge. Read

on to see what the com-

mon problems are, and

how BI can solve them.

You’re thinking it might be

time to streamline your

strategic business decisions

but aren’t sure if you’re ready

to make the commitment with

a full Business Intelligence

solution.

You’re managing information from a numberof different data sources. You’re pulling

reports once a month and think you have apretty good handle on what’s going on in yourcompany. But do you really?

Or maybe you’re constantly frustrated because you can’t

get the data you need when you need it, and your important

business decisions always seem like they involve a little bit

of guesswork.

If either of these scenarios sound familiar, it’s time to start

thinking about Business Intelligence.

Besides the obvious situations above, there are a number of

red ags that signify a company is ready to take the plunge

into BI. Let’s take a look at some of the six most common.

LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT THE WAY YOU MIGHT BEMONITORING AND MEASURING YOUR COMPANY

About the auther

Peter Ørum is the Product

Manager at TARGIT Business

Intelligence & Analytics,

where he has served since

2006. He is an expert in the

eld of BI & Analytics, and his

resume includes the project

of implementing Business

Intelligence at Tommy Hilger.

Peter is resident in Tampa,

Fla., but is originally from

Denmark.



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As often happens when companies grow,

organizations split each business segment into their

own, largely autonomous division, each with its own

budget and management process. But at the end of

the day, information must be consolidated from each

division into a single report in order to keep track of

budgeting, forecasting, performance, and general

company health.

This involves manually extracting data from eachsystem and compiling a report in Microsoft Excel. But

this is time-consuming, tedious, and open to human

error. Usually it can only be done by the IT department

so those who need the information can’t pull it or

adjust it themselves.

1. YOU’RE REGULARLY CONSOLIDATING REPORTSFROM VARIOUS DATA SOURCES

The solution

A Business Intelligence system automatically

culls information from all available data sources

and displays data in easily digestible dashboards,

reports, and analyses. Users can then dig deeper

and gure out the trends that might otherwise be

hidden deep within data.

Share knowledge across the company and control

who has access to what. Create one report or

dashboard, and let the system automatically

tailor it for each individual or department. Or

share access to data across the company from

all business units so users can make better, more

informed decisions.



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2. IT TAKES DAYS TO PULL A REPORT

If you’re still pulling reports manually, you know the many steps involved in hopefully getting

an accurate representation of your company data. There’s the process of extracting the

data, manipulating it by hand based on your needs, and validating the information to ensure

reports reect the right data. This takes valuable company time and resources.

For many companies, it takes up to three days to pull a single report. This is a major

problem. Clearly, if a report or analysis takes signicant time to generate, minute trends and

KPIs are not being monitored daily or even likely weekly. If a deviation occurs, it could take

days or even weeks before it’s noticed and action is taken to correct it.

The solution

With BI however, all data extraction

and processing is put in the hands of

the computer. Reports can be created

with as little as one click and a few

seconds.

And thanks to tools like notication

agents, you can sit back and let the

system monitor all the data incoming

from the ERP system and notify you

when changes occur. Which leads me

to my next red ag …



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3. YOUR COMPANYHAS ESTABLISHED KPIS

THAT ARE ONLYMONITORED MONTHLY

A Key Performance Indicator isn’t indicating much if it’s only being

examined once a month. KPIs must be measured frequently. At a

minimum, they should be measured daily.Ideally, they’re monitored 24

hours a day, seven days a week. If it takes days to run a single report,

it’s simply not possible to make strategic business decisions.

The solution

A Business Intelligence system will extract data

every day, multiple times a day. This keeps a

steady nger on the pulse of your company health

by observing not only the large peaks and valleys,

but any minute changes in business.

With real-time observation, it’s possible to drill

down to nd exactly what worked and what didn’t.

Did a particular Tweet spike visits to your website?

Is there a particular day of the week or time of the

day that sees a bump in sales? Knowing these

answers gives you the key to improving business

by zeroing in on what works best and what

doesn’t.

A true BI solution will not only automatically

generate these reports, but as I mentioned above,

will send notications to your desktop, tablet, or

mobile phone if a KPI reaches a certain threshold.

This ensures action can be taken immediately.



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The solution

With the ability to translate data into visualizations, getting your head around

what was once a complicated spreadsheet becomes easy. But Business

Intelligence is about more than just insight and data graphs; it’s about working

within the information to see where the trends begin and how to move forward

with them.

No detail is too small with the right tools. The more the picture of a company

comes into focus, the more condently decisions can be made. There’s a

reason the OODA loop starts with Observation, and BI makes that step easy.

Move through Orientation, Decision, and Action faster and more intelligently.

BI enables users to push high level reports and analyses out to the entire

organization so everyone has insight. This creates a more informed

environment and motivates and inspires employees to reach their goals. As

I’ll touch on further in a moment, you can rest easy knowing everyone in the

organization has the most updated information available.

4. YOU HAVE CLOUDY INSIGHT INTO OPERATIONS

How can a decision maker be expected to make decisions without

full insight into all the operations of a company? Take, for example,

the CMO who must justify her budget but can’t quantify the marketing

dollars spent on a Facebook campaign. Or the Director or Sales who

needs quick insight into forecasts, goals, expenses, and earnings

before the weekly sales meeting. Or the CEO who wants to know

which products are most popular in a specic location.



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Not only is the amount of available data sources growing, but so is the

complexity of the data. As a result, there’s a rise in reporting experts

spending an increasing amount of time developing reports and analytics

for an extended user base within a company. With different users each

manipulating data differently, it becomes challenging to maintain a consistent

shared world view across the company.

This is especially apparent when those reports are generated in Excel

and manipulations live only in an individual’s own les. These might

then be shared through paper reports, word of mouth, emails, or via the

company network, causing further fragmentation and loss of control of data

consistency.

The solution

With a full-edged BI solution, companies can harvest

the benets of a single reporting and analytics platform

that provides a consistent user experience across all

platforms. Changes and manipulations are reected in

real time.

And reports and analyses can be shared throughout

the company, with only relevant data for each individual

or department shown automatically. Dashboards can

also be added to storyboards, so each department and

team can effortlessly follow the progress of ongoing

project. Never again wonder if everyone is viewing the

most current data.

5. THERE ARE DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE TRUTH IN YOUR DATA



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6. THERE’S RESTRICTED ACCESS TO YOUR DATA

Information doesn’t do you any good if you can’t

access it when you need to. As mentioned above,

data sources and complexity are growing at a rapid

pace. Not only is it vital for companies to measure

and monitor internal data, but they now need to keep

a reading on the external data exploding around

them. In fact, over time a company’s external data

will far exceed their internal data. Companies that

don’t learn from and adapt to this Big Data will be

quickly left behind.

As such, many companies keep BI in the hands of

the IT department. Generating reports and analyses

are time-consuming and complex. If you don’t have a

degree in computer science, it isn’t likely you’re going

to master the system.

The solution

With advanced Business Intelligence and Analytics solutions however,

BI is put in the hands of everyone in the organization. User-friendly

search engines make creating reports, analyses, and dashboards as

simple as plugging in a few natural language words and watching the

computer do the work for you on any platform.

Anyone can edit criteria and drill down on data with a few clicks. And

create stunning data visualizations that make the answers you’re

looking for obvious. Suddenly, everyone has an advanced degree in

BI. Just one of these red ags is strong sign that you need to start

thinking about Business Intelligence. Once you’ve opened your eyes

to BI, you’ll be surprised at the picture that comes into focus.



Gather Your (any) Data Learn From Your Data Share Your Data Act On Your Data

SQL, ERP, CRM

Dashboards >Review your KPIs against your goals.

Storyboards >Motivate employees by showing

progress on display TVs.

Alerts >Get a heads-up when metrics deviate and

action need to be taken. Anywhere.

Excel, External statsAnalytics >

Understand what happened,

why it happened, and what’s coming next.

Emails >Improved collaboration with one-click

distribution of analyses via emails.

Intelligent Wizard >Tell the system what you want. The BI Wizard

tells you what you want to know and

remembers your preferences.

Google Analytics, Social media

Reports >Build reports in less than one minute with

one-click-to-analysis integration.

Batch report scheduling >Customize where your reports go and

distribute them automatically.

In-Memory Analytics > Analyze the crucial data that doesn’t

live in your data warehouse.

Mobility/Web/desktop > Access your data when and

where you need it.

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TARGIT IS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYTICSSOFTWARE MADE FOR ACTION

http://www.targit.com/



www.targit.com

TARGIT is designed for your entire

organization, from the CEO who follows the

key metrics, to nancial workers who need

accurate reports, to sales managers who

need performance analytics and customer

insights, to marketing who cares about the

cost of leads, to IT who wants data security

and smoothly integrated data processes.

TARGIT has everybody covered.

In fact, TARGIT is the most widely deployed

solution in the market, and customers rate

TARGIT higher in usability than any other

solution.

We believe that data should be connected

and available to decision makers when and

where they need it. There is always one

more question to ask of the data you see,

and if the answer is not immediately available

you run the risk of having to act on intuition.

That’s why TARGIT is designed to get you

from dashboards and reports to analyses

with only one click.

Add to that the integration tools that

prepare your data for analysis in less than

a day and the intelligence that lets you

use natural language to ask for the report

or analysis you want. TARGIT takes you

from observation to action faster than any

other tool on the market.

TARGIT gives you the courage to act.

ONE SOLUTION TO COVER ALL ANALYTICS AND REPORTING NEEDS




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Six Signs You Are Ready for BI