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The Importance of Business Intelligence Reporting

 

My last blog talked about the changes that I have seen in the use of Business intelligence tools.  I thought that perhaps this one could discuss the importance of Business Intelligence reporting.

Business Intelligence reporting is a subject that has created a lot of interest, many comments and many BI solutions. There are numerous groups and web sites that discuss the subject in great detail.  Even searching the Daily Mirror produces the odd result for Business Intelligence.  Sadly no such results can be found in The Sun so you will have to find another excuse to look at page three.

Business Intelligence is important because it enables users to make decisions that affect how an organisation is run.

Forbes tells us that many companies are turning to business intelligence to help them to get a better understanding of the Key Performance indicators that drive their business.

A recent report by Accenture suggests that high performing companies are more analytical than lower performing businesses. They are more likely to have business intelligence capabilities, business intelligence reporting, and data that is integrated and analysed across the business rather than in silos.

But, for most Business Intelligence tools, the cost and time involved in implementing a Business Intelligence solution is prohibitive.  In fact many consulting organisations advise you to start slowly and then build up.  This, however, can prove to be difficult because there is often a need to build a data warehouse.  As it would be inefficient and expensive to continually add to a data warehouse these tend to be built before users can take advantage of Business Intelligence reporting.

At QlikPower we have found that one of the advantages offered by Qlikview is that, as a data warehouse is not required, data from the whole business can be analysed.  As importantly it allows you to start slowly and then build up.  You will quickly be able to gain the benefits of Business Intelligence reporting without the huge cost of developing a data warehouse.  

Make Better Decisions with Key Performance Indicators

In the twenty or so years that I have been working in the Business Intelligence arena things have changed dramatically.  In the early days a great deal of technical intelligence was required.  Specialists would need to first understand what information users wanted and then build a data warehouse that they hoped would include all of the data required to populate a cube.  No-one even knew, let alone considered, what the Key Performance indicators should be.  BI reports were often limited by the capability of IT technicians' ability to understand user requirements.  Though the benefits were often big so were the costs.  Building data warehouses were, and still are, time consuming and expensive and often restricted to key parts of the business such as the Finance department.

Now things are completely different.  Key performance indicators drive business decisions and, with Qlikview, data warehouses no longer need to be built.  Users drive their analytic requirements and create their own BI reports.  The reliance on specialist technicians is greatly reduced with users able to build, and modify, their own BI reports.At QlikPower we have seen these changes offer huge benefits to organisations both big and small.  Without the need to build complex and expensive data warehouses BI reporting can be extended to all parts of the organisation.  One of the benefits of Qlikview is the ability to connect directly to the available data.  This means that BI reporting is up to date and accurate. 

For me the biggest benefit is that BI Reports are produced in a more cost effective way.  Costs are lower not just because product pricing has come down but also because specialist technical expertise is aimed much more at user requirements.  But most important of all users get results much more quickly enabling them to make better decisions.   This now means that every department has Key performance Indicators on which they are able to monitor progress and can create their own BI reports to help identify issues.

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