Management or internal reporting is essential for any strong and successful business. While it is often overlooked and is seen as a ‘nice to have’, there are real significant costs for reporting errors, misinformation, as well as opportunity costs from tying up reporting resources and not having the right reports that can provide a competitive advantage.
Leading businesses and organisations understand in today’s modern and data driven environment that having access to real-time trusted information is essential. It allows them to identify and reveal revenue opportunities and/or cost savings.
Through the use of modern business intelligence technology, like IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Power BI they don’t need to worry and sinking time and effort into gathering, collating, cleansing or formatting – especially in Excel.
It is often quoted that “88 percent of all spreadsheets have errors”, this means there is a significant risk that a large percentage will also have material defects. Forget that the mistakes impact on time and money, it also damages careers and reputations. Imagine explaining to the board that last month’s board report was out by a few million due to a formula or copy/paste error.
Unfortunately, most organisations still think Business Intelligence is a “nice to have” – traditional top level managers are already receiving the reports they need so why do they need to pay extra to see the same report presented in a different format?
BI is not just about reporting – sure the outcome maybe in a report format however BI is much more than that. Don’t get confused into thinking that BI is simply a reporting and monitoring tool for the business. Sure it helps to ensure reporting mistakes are kept a minimum, however the real value of BI is in using it to uncover business opportunities and identifying cost cutting ideas.
Talk to one of our consultants today to understand how BI can help your business strategically and tactically.
