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These days, most people understand the term Natural Language Processing (NLP). It has been around a while, and represents perhaps the most significant information tool in the past century.
Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) have unlocked a vast library of knowledge, making it accessible to the average person, requiring no significant technical skills, and leveling the playing field for millions of people, seeking to learn and understand the world.
‘NLP search technology significantly simplifies the user experience and encourages team members to learn and incorporate augmented analytics into their daily activities.’
Just a few years ago, Gartner predicted that, ‘50% of analytical queries will be generated via search, NLP or voice, or will be automatically generated.’ Today, this prediction is a reality.
When an enterprise wishes to implement augmented analytics and business intelligence, and make these tools available to its business user community, it must select a solution that uses natural language processing (NLP) search capabilities to allow business users with average technical skills to gather and analyze data and achieve results. Without these simple tools, the enterprise cannot ensure user adoption of the solution.
Natural Language Processing Search Analytics (NLP) is crucial component to search analytics in that it allows business users to perform complex searches without endless clicks, coded queries, or complex navigation and commands. Users can access and view clear, concise answers and analysis quickly and easily, leveraging a familiar Google-type interface to compose and enter a question using common language.
When you choose Augmented Analytics with machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), your users can enjoy a self-serve environment that is easy and intuitive, and will increase user adoption, data democratization, and return on investment (ROI).
NLP search technology significantly simplifies the user experience and encourages team members to learn and incorporate augmented analytics into their daily activities. Finding information is easy! Let’s suppose a team member wants to understand the trends in regional bakery sales. With NLP, the user can simply ask, ‘how many bakery products were sold in the Southwest and Southeast regions in 2023?’
Natural Language Processing (NLP) and search capability allows users to avoid scrolling through menus and navigation. The user only has to enter a simply worded search query, and the system will translate the query, and return the results in natural language using an appropriate form, e.g., visualization, tables, numbers or descriptions. There is no advanced training required. Users can analyze data and receive results in a way that is meaningful to them.
The benefits of augmented analytics using natural language processing (NLP) enable swift, easy searching and allows business users to create context-rich searches that provide in-depth information and concise results and can be used to solve problems, identify opportunities, spot trends and patterns and present data and recommendations. There is no need to request reports or information from IT, business analysts or data scientists. The business user has the tools and the capability to get results when and how they need the information.
‘Just a few years ago, Gartner predicted that, ‘50% of analytical queries will be generated via search, NLP or voice, or will be automatically generated.’ Today, this prediction is a reality.’
Many small and start-up businesses have been using Tally Prime, Tally ERP and other Tally products for a long time. Their business users are familiar with the software and use it daily to manage all manner of financial issues, track, monitor, update and share information.
Today, business users are more mobile than ever before. Some work from home, some are on the road meeting with clients, customers and suppliers, and may be preparing for meetings or completing tasks in a hotel, airport or home office. In an environment where businesses are looking for a competitive edge, and trying to make the most out of precious resources, the use of mobile tools is more important than ever.
Every enterprise needs data and analytics to help team members make confident, fact-based decisions, but it can be difficult to get users to adopt these tools, especially if they see it as just one more thing they have to do, one more thing they have to learn! By integrating analytics with Tally solutions, and providing this integrated functionality in a mobile environment, the enterprise can encourage user adoption, and illustrate the value of analytics to its user base.
‘If you wish to integrate analytics with your Tally solution, choose a reputable, proven solution with a full suite of capabilities..’
Science Direct studied financial analytics and the use of tools to monitor, manage and find information. ‘Machine learning models do not make such assumptions. They are therefore more flexible and iterative. They are also able to model non-linear data.’
When you integrate mobile machine learning augmented analytics with Tally solutions, you can refine your understanding of issues and opportunities and make better decisions. There are numerous benefits to integrating analytics with the Tally environment, including:
Access to the familiar Tally environment using a native iOS or Android mobile app
Tally mobile analytics extends the office environment so users can perform crucial tasks from anywhere
Users have near real-time access to recent transactions and data
Mobile access provides an intuitive interface and navigation for clear analysis and results
Users can manage information for multiple entities and companies
Cloud server fetches and displays data, graphs and reports
All interaction and transactions are secured
If you wish to integrate self-serve analytics with your Tally solution, choose a reputable, proven solution with a full suite of capabilities. SmartenApps for Tally Mobile application is based on the Smarten Augmented Analytics suite of advanced analytics and is accredited by Gartner and recognized for its intuitive, easy-to-use analytics, Smarten offers stunning visualization, dynamic charts and graphs, modern business intelligence features, and key performance indicators (KPIs) metrics.
‘In an environment where businesses are looking for a competitive edge, and trying to make the most out of precious resources, the use of mobile analytical tools is more important than ever.’
Find out how mobile SmartenApps For Tally can your small business team and extend access to your Tally solution with analytics that offer accounting, finance, sales, inventory, and purchasing professionals and team members the tools they need to improve performance.
Gartner predicts that ‘organizations that offer users access to a curated catalog of internal and external data will derive twice as much business value from analytics investments as those that do not.’ In order to make the most of the data that resides in all the corners of your enterprise, you must make sense of that data, and leverage it to create products and services, to compete in your market of choice and refine your workflow and tasks to improve productivity and agility.
The key to making the most of your data is analytics, and the ability to gather and analyze data and produce results that are intuitive and clear. Machine learning has evolved to support the average business user with tools and techniques that make it easier to gather and analyze data using simple techniques that are supported by analytical techniques, without requiring business users to have data science skills.
‘Auto Insights analytics allows business users to select the dataset to be analyzed, and let the system do the rest.’
Today’s business users expect to have access to software solutions and techniques that are easy to understand and navigate. As consumers, they have the world at their fingertips, with simple techniques that require little to no technical knowledge. If your enterprise plans to adopt augmented analytics tools and business intelligence techniques, it must provide simple tools that are easy enough for the average business users to incorporate into workflow and tasks. This approach will help the organization achieve its analytical goals while ensuring an appropriate return on investment (ROI) and decreasing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). It can also encourage and enable Citizen Data Scientist initiatives and improve data literacy.
The Auto Insights approach to analytics provides a foundation of Assisted Predictive Modeling and easy-to-use tools, making it simple enough for every business user to adopt as an important tool in the team toolkit, and supporting the path from business user to Citizen Data Scientist, with tools that encourage data literacy.
Auto Insights frees business users and reduces the time and skills required to produce accurate, clear results, quickly and dependably, using machine learning that frees the business user to collect and analyze data with the guided assistance of a ‘smart’ solution.
Auto Insights allows business users to select the dataset to be analyzed, and let the system do the rest. The tool will interpret the dataset, select important columns of data, analyze its type and variety and other parameters and then use intelligent machine learning to automatically apply the best algorithm and analytical technique and provide data insight so the user can easily see and understand the results.
The Auto Insights concept is applied to data repositories to enable the enterprise and its business users to perform complex data analytics and share analysis across the organization in a self-serve, mobile environment, bringing the power of sophisticated, advanced analytics and smart data visualization to the members to automate and analyze, so enterprise users can quickly get the answers they need and move on to make confident decisions.
‘The key to making the most of your data is analytics, and the ability to gather, analyze and view data easily, and produce results that are intuitive and clear.’
If you are interested in finding out more about the advantages of the Smarten Auto Insights approach to Augmented Analytics and self-serve search analytics, Contact Us to explore how these techniques can help your enterprise apply analytics to achieve results. Let us help you realize your business goals and objectives with fact-based information.
Mobile BI Business Use Illustrates Real Advantages!
Mobile Business Intelligence (or Mobile BI) is defined as ‘a system comprising both technical and organizational elements that present historical and/or real-time information to its users for analysis on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets (not laptops), to enable effective decision-making and management support, for the overall purpose of increasing firm performance.’
Aberdeen Group reports that businesses adopt Mobile BI to:
Improve business process efficiency
Improve employee productivity
Make better decisions, more quickly
Provide better customer service
Deliver real-time bi-directional data access to make decisions anytime and anywhere.
‘Mobile BI benefits go well beyond simple reporting and the sharing of data across user groups, to address real business issues and to keep users up to date and allow them to respond to real world, real-time issues.’
As local and global competition increases, most businesses are looking for ways to improve their competitive advantage, and to quickly adapt to the changing market, to employee needs and to customer buying behavior.
It can be helpful to consider some real-world business use cases, in order to understand the value and benefit of incorporating a Mobile BI solution within your technology landscape and your analytics approach.
The advantages of Mobile BI go beyond team collaboration and individual reporting needs, to provide the background and foundational information needed to make decisions on business strategy and to understand customer preferences.
The following list of companies represents a small sampling of businesses currently using Mobile BI to improve business results and efficiency:
Amazon – Amazon analyzes purchasing behavior and browsing history to predict what products a customer might want to see, and what they are likely to buy, personalizing the customer experience and making it easier for customers to complete a transaction. BI tools help the business to forecast demand and ensure that stock is available.
Starbucks – The business has implemented a loyalty program to help with customer engagement and sales, personalizing marketing strategies and allowing customers to order, pay and receive rewards. It gathers data using its digital channels and uses that data to create targeted offers and to improve customer retention, as well as increasing the amount customers spend during a visit.
Netflix – The company uses BI tools to personalize the viewing experience and to analyze customer viewing preferences and push specific options to the customer based on viewing history. Mobile BI tools allow teams to analyze and share information regarding regional viewing and to make decisions on the fly.
Uber – The company business model is dependent on the rapid changes and shifting behavior of customers from one local and regional area to the next. Real-time pricing and operational decisions are made to support surge pricing and driver deployment for high demand areas. The back-end systems and BI tools allow drivers to access information using the Uber app so that they can quickly respond to the changing environment.
Tesla – Mobile BI and wireless car data analytics allow Tesla to connect remotely to corporate offices and collect and analyze vehicle data to address issues and update customers on maintenance etc.
X/Twitter – Mobile BI provides support or moderators to identify and quickly address platform safety issues, violations, etc. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with BI tools allows the business to quickly respond and ensure a safe user experience.
Mobile BI provides the background and foundational information needed to make decisions on business strategy and to understand customer preferences.
These examples illustrate the many ways in which Mobile BI can be used to address business issues, providing user access and analytics for team members no matter where they are and how they need to use the data. Mobile BI benefits go well beyond simple reporting and the sharing of data across user groups, to address real business issues and to keep users up to date and allow them to respond to real world, real-time issues.
If you want to support your business user team and provide a foundation for BI tools that will better serve your team and your customers, explore Smarten Mobile BI benefits and features, with powerful functionality and access for your business users including out-of-the-box Mobile BI and advanced analytics for every team member. For more information on Mobile BI and Augmented Analytics, read our article, ‘Understanding The Truth About Mobile BI.’
Analytics Solutions Should Include Key Influencer Analytics!
What is Key Influencer Analytics ? Simply put, Key Influencer Analytics is an analytical technique that helps the user analyze and understand the various factors affecting an outcome, what variables impact the metric, and the ranking of those factors. Key Influencer Analytics takes the guesswork out of decisions by clearly illustrating what factors influence success of a pricing strategy, a business location choice, a marketing campaign, a research project, etc.
‘With the right analytics solution, your users can simply point to the dataset they want to analyze and Key Influencer Analytics will identify the target and the influencers or predictors that will affect the target, along with its impact.’
Grand View Research estimates the analytics software market at nearly 142B USD, with an expected growth of nearly 14% over the next five to six years. The reason for this growth is simple. In order to succeed in their market of choice, businesses must understand the competition, the customer and how their products and services are perceived and embraced in the market, so they can plan for the future and adapt to changes.
There are a few factors that will impact the efficiency and effectiveness of the analytics solution you choose.
First, the data volume you want to analyze can be very large, and the data can come from disparate systems, so the ability to integrate and gather all data in one place is important. Depending on the size of the dataset a user selects, there may be hundreds or thousands of variables, and business users often find it difficult to identify the rights ones. Yet without the ability to identify the right variables, the business is likely to measure and attend to the wrong things.
Secondly, you must provide easy-to-use tools that your team can leverage to find what they need. Users should have interactive features that allow them to see and explore other combinations and impacts and can select target and predictors, and use them for models, reports or KPIs. Influencer Analytics empowers every business user and allows them quickly select and target data to achieve results without the assistance of a data scientist, IT professional or analyst.
Third, your team needs key influencer analytics to understand the interrelationships of data points and how they affect outcomes so they can adapt and adjust. With the right analytics solution, your users can simply point to the dataset they want to analyze and Key Influencer Analytics will identify the target and the influencers or predictors that will affect the target, along with its impact and it provides crucial metrics such as mean, outliers, and others and identifies relationship and distribution among variables. The system will auto-suggest relationships and present distribution and impact using the most appropriate visualization.
Here are just a few of the benefits of Key Influencer Analytics:
Identify what matters most in your data!
Understand the impact and interdependence of variables
Leverage auto-suggestions and machine learning to get data insights
Identify influencers affecting the target variable with auto-suggestions and quick maneuvers using different combinations
‘Key Influencer Analytics takes the guesswork out of decisions by clearly illustrating what factors influence success of a pricing strategy, a business location choice, a marketing campaign, a research project, etc.’
With Key Influencer Analytics your team can address the right issues and capitalize on opportunities to optimize results. Explore Smarten Augmented Analytics modules and components and the benefits of Key Influencer Analytics for your team and your enterprise.
Give Your Team Traditional and Modern BI in One Solution
Business Intelligence (BI) solutions have been around for some time. The traditional BI tools were designed to be used by the IT team, business analysts and data scientists and utilized sophisticated features which required specialized knowledge and skills possessed only by the technical and analytical community. In this environment, business users were consumers of content, and while they could access information from dashboards, reports and KPIs, they had very limited access to date and they could not interact with that data. Where users had access to data, BI objects, reports and dashboards were developed, provisioned and presented to them by the IT team, so the business user had no control over what they could see or the format of the data.
‘In the past, business users were restricted to analytical content provided by IT staff and Data Scientists with limited interaction and access to data’
Gartner predicted that ‘…smart/augmented, nonrelational-, search- and visual-based data discovery capabilities will converge into a single set of next generation data discovery capabilities as components of modern BI and analytics platforms.’
In line with Gartner predictions, the new world of Augmented Analytics and Modern BI solutions enables end-users and team members to access and use business intelligence (BI) to combine their industry and functional knowledge with clear, concise data. These new solutions are focused on business users, and on their empowerment, placing the power of true insight into the hands of business users and transitioning business users into Citizen Data Scientists. These solutions provide more value to the organization, improving technology Return on Investment (ROI), Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increasing efficiency with fact-based decisions. Modern BI and Augmented Analytics offers data integration and sophisticated analytical models and techniques in an easy-to-use interface that provides auto-suggestions and recommendations to speed the analytical process and ensure that users get what they need. It also provides report formats, publishing tools, alerts and analysis that can be shared by team members to encourage user adoption and collaboration.
As the needs of the average user evolve, most businesses find that a combination of traditional BI tools and Modern BI tools will best meet the needs of the team and ensure that every team member has the tools they need to get the job done.
Here are the primary features and functionality your business will need to capture Traditional Business Intelligence components and provide comprehensive coverage for your team. These solutions allow the IT staff to provide dashboards and reports for business user consumption and review:
Personalized Dashboards – Users with average technical skills can design personalized dashboards in minutes without programming knowledge.
Multidimensional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – The team can define KPIs using an intuitive expression engine and KPI software to set polarity, frequency and threshold levels.
Social Business Intelligence – Imagine an environment where business users can access a business intelligence and analysis portal and see popular data to rate, share and comment.
What-If Analysis – Enables business users to determine how a prospective change to a product, service, resource allocation, budget, schedule, pricing, raw material cost, labor cost, or other factors might affect the business bottom line.
Graphical Analysis – Business users can leverage stunning visualizations, alerts for exceptions and trends, and intuitive, mobile BI dashboards with true deep dive capabilities!
Mobile Business Intelligence – Business intelligence solutions your business users can enjoy with high-performance BI tools that will work on any size or type of device.
GeoMap Support – Users can leverage geo maps, analyze data for any location, and define geographic areas with support for drill down, spot lighter and other features.
Exceptions and Personalized Alerts – With exception reporting users can define thresholds, monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and metrics, and even receive alerts when exceptions occur with the ability to set, modify and delete alerts based on specific thresholds.
R Integration – Integrates seamlessly with R (the popular open source programming language and software environment for statistical computing), so users can integrate any R script with simple input and output configuration.
Print Reports – The IT team can leverage a simple, basic programming or scripting environment to define format templates and produce reports for delivery by email.
Web-Based BI Reports – Business intelligence reporting software enables users to point-and-click and drag-and-drop to create a report summarizing performance metrics, or operational data, without programming or database or SQL skills.
Modern BI and Advanced Analytics – Augmented Analytics enables the transition from business user to Citizen Data Scientist and supports data democratization and data literacy, allowing Data Scientists to focus on strategy and business user access to analytics to perform day-to-day analytics.
Assisted Predictive Modeling – Predictive analytics for business users provides predictive modeling capability assisted by auto-recommendations and auto-suggestions to simplify use and optimize outcomes, allowing business users to predict outcomes without the expertise of a data scientist.
Auto Insights – The Auto Insights Smarten toolset allows business users to simply select the dataset to be analyzed and let the system interpret the dataset, select important columns of data, analyze its type and variety and other parameters and use intelligent machine learning to automatically apply the best algorithm and analytical technique and provide data insights.
Key Influencer Analytics – Focus on what matters and find the most relevant influencers for your target KPIs. Business users often find it difficult to identify the right targets and to understand relationships and factors that influence results.
Anomaly Analysis – Reveal trends, anomalies and answers, map targets, focus on influencers that matter and adapt to succeed.
Smart Data Visualization – Smart data visualization allows business users to view and analyze data to identify a problem and clarify a root cause and to make confident decisions.
Self-Serve Data Preparation – Smart data discovery tools and augmented data preparation features allow business users with average skills to perform data preparation and transform, shape, reduce, combine, explore, clean, sample and aggregate data, without the need for SQL skills, ETL or other programming language.
‘As the needs of the average user evolve, most businesses find that a combination of traditional BI tools and Modern BI tools will best meet the needs of the team and ensure that every team member has the tools they need to get the job done.’
There are other many other features and components available to support users, IT, business analysts and data scientists in the traditional and modern analytics environment.
Use Embedded BI to Encourage Business User Analytics Adoption!
Today, even the smallest business depends on technology and software to manage the business process, capture data and move the enterprise forward. No matter the size of a business, executives and managers now realize the value of providing analytics to make decisions. In the past, the analytics process was the sole domain of IT, business analysts and data scientists but today, organizations know that data democratization and data literacy are key to business performance and to keeping pace with the market and with changing customer buying behavior.
In order to accommodate this need, the business must provide easy-to-use analytics solutions that offer sophisticated functionality and features in an intuitive environment so team members can embrace analytics and willingly adopt these solutions.
‘Embedded BI brings the power of analytics closer to the user and allows them to use popular software and apps to achieve analytical goals with a single sign-on approach.’
If you want to take advantage of this approach, there is a consideration you should include in your strategy – and that consideration might surprise you. Consider the number of applications and software products your team uses to complete tasks and to find information. Did you know that, by some estimates, team members lose up to ten (10) percent of their time switching tasks and applications. One of the most frustrating realities an employee can face is trying to gather and analyze data. Suppose you want to analyze sales for a particular location, or a particular sales team for a certain period of time. In the old technology world, you would have to export the data, or you might use an integrated analytics solution and gather the data there by choosing the fields you want to analyze.
Today, you can use Embedded Business Intelligence (BI) to find and analyze data without ever leaving the confines of your sales software. Embedded BI is designed to embed within a popular, familiar software platform. By placing this capability within a familiar application or software solution, the organization gives its team members access to data, pulling information from the system of origin, integrating and streamlining data processing and reporting time.
Embedded BI brings the power of analytics closer to the user and allows them to use popular software and apps to achieve analytical goals with a single sign-on approach, so they don’t lose time switching between software solutions or exporting and importing data. Users have access to dashboards, charts, graphs and analytical tools, all within the ERP, HRM, CRM, SCM or other enterprise solution. Embedded BI allows users to integrate analytics within workflow and collect and analyze data easily.
When considering an Embedded BI solution, be sure you choose one that accommodates access both in the office and on the road, with mobile access that enables business users to take analytics on the road.
‘In order to accommodate this need, the business must provide easy-to-use analytics solutions that offer sophisticated functionality and features in an intuitive environment so team members can embrace analytics and willingly adopt these solutions.’
You can find out more about the Smarten Embedded BI And Integration APIs solution and add powerful functionality and access to existing ERP, SCM, HRMS, CRM or any other products. Provide analytics capabilities within existing products without major Investment. Your business users and your customers will appreciate the ease-of-use and access and you will gain a competitive advantage. Read our White Paper: ‘Making The Case For Embedded BI And Analytics.’
When the business undertakes a Mobile BI initiative, it must plan carefully to ensure success, achieve rapid return on investment (ROI) and achieve low total cost of ownership (TCO).
There are four primary goals of this exercise:
Improve Collaboration and Productivity
Streamline Decision-Making
Optimize Time and Resources by Providing Business Users with Intuitive Tools
Engender an Environment That Will Support Citizen Data Scientists
‘Be sure that the mobile business intelligence solution you choose supports a seamless user experience, and allows users to easily see dashboards, reports etc.’
To achieve these goals, you must assess existing workflow and business processes and ensure that users can incorporate mobile business intelligence within team tasks and activities, that IT can support the environment and that managers can make the best use of the data presented by the team.
Review and Address Culture and Workflow – Take a look at a) the technical skills and technology use of your users, managers and executives, and understand how and when they use data. How is data used (if at all) to make decisions, or gain approval? In order to make the best use of Mobile BI, you will want to integrate this solution into the day-to-day process, and be sure that there is an access loop for executives and managers to receive and review data from users.
Establish Objectives and Metrics – We discussed the fact that you must understand your requirements, but you should also use those requirements to define objectives for the project and to set metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that will tell you that the users are leveraging the mobile business intelligence solution, and that the data produced is having a positive impact on organizational goals. Be sure to create a review process for metrics, so that you can identify trends and modify metrics and processes to adapt to change.
Review Data Accessibility and Quality – Ensure that your users have access to accurate data. Do you have a process in place to allow for data gathering, cleansing and validation? Have you eliminated redundant or duplicate records? Is the data you wish to use in Mobile BI easily integrated and accessible? Your users will not want to go to another source to get information so, if you want them to use Mobile BI tools, you must make the right information available to them within the Mobile BI environment.
Review the Need for User Training – Even when your users have access to most intuitive solutions, you may wish to have a simple training session to be sure that all users understand a) what is expected of them, b) how to use the solution most effectively and c) how to get help if they have questions or issues.
Reports and Visualization – Be sure that the mobile business intelligence solution you choose supports a seamless user experience, and allows users to easily see dashboards, reports etc. so that they can incorporate data and reporting into their staff reports, their meetings, and their recommendations to management without expensive, time-consuming report customization or custom visualization designs.
User and Data Volume – Be sure that you plan for expansion of the mobile BI solution. As you add departments, divisions, user groups and additional data sources, you will want to ensure that your devices, network, and mobile BI solution can support the additional load, and still perform well.
The Data-Driven Organization – It is all well and good to encourage your users to work with data, to analyze information and use that information to present ideas and solutions to management, but if the executive team or the middle managers do not accept and reward the use of data in decision-making, the mobile BI solution will be just another toy. Staff assessments and career evaluations should support fact-based decision making and discourage guesswork and opinion as a means to drawing conclusions. Team members and managers should solicit and encourage the use of data during staff meetings and to support reports and decisions.
‘Assess existing workflow and business processes and ensure that users can incorporate mobile business intelligence within team tasks and activities, that IT can support the environment and that managers can make the best use of the data presented by the team.’
In this article, we have discussed the importance of successful integration of Mobile BI into business practices.
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