Business Intelligence without hurdles
Using Excel lists to combat data clutter? Once upon a time. Today, software such as Microsoft’s Power BI ensures the right overview and provides companies with all essential information.
Even though business intelligence is now also on the radar of medium-sized companies, it doesn’t seem to be a topic that is particularly pressing on your customers’ minds, does it?
Andreas Eickel:
But quite the opposite: Business Intelligence, applied by us in the form of Microsoft Power BI, is very often an entry point for our service. Even with third-party ERP systems, our customers often start with Power BI. The background to this is that many companies have long had problems creating reports. They have realized that they can no longer cope with the clutter of data collected in the traditional way.
How did companies do it in the past?
Andreas Eickel: In some cases, the wildest Excel lists were built that only lasted a few weeks. With Business Intelligence, they now have a way to evaluate the data in a structured way and at the same time not have to create new reports all the time. Breakdowns are also no problem: For example, a sales report can be filtered in several dimensions: by a specific product, for specific markets, etc. What large BI solutions can do, Power BI can do too.
Isn’t there a risk that management will be literally “overwhelmed” by the multitude of information that has now been made visible?
Andreas Eickel: In my opinion, you don’t have to and shouldn’t look at every automatically generated evaluation. By linking services, however, it is possible, for example, to have a push message sent to your smartphone if a monthly turnover in a certain range has not been reached. Then I can act as management or divisional management. And that’s exactly the point of data collection and analysis.
So Power BI helps me to finally visualize the data I already have in a sensible way and make it useful for my everyday business?
Andreas Eickel: You could sum it up that way, yes. When the necessary data sets are available, it is important that the resulting diagrams and lists, some of which are also dynamic, “speak” to each other. In order to achieve this, we advise our customers and, if desired, also prepare the initial reports. It is very important to break down barriers in the mind.
What do you mean by that specifically?
Andreas Eickel: When you think of power BI, you don’t immediately have to think of “machine learning” or AI. In the simplest case, it is first of all a matter of proper reporting of the existing data. The creation of the data sets is not complex. The existing data model can be used immediately by the software. A third party system can also be integrated quietly. Not everything has to come from Microsoft for it to work well. It is important to consolidate services from the cloud, but this does not have to be the complete ERP solution.
What about the financial hurdle?
Andreas Eickel: That no longer exists de facto – at 8.40 euros for Power BI. I can only advise to just give it a try.
