Business intelligence tools are applicable and valuable for every type and size business, and every vertical. When a manufacturing or supply chain company considers BI tools, they often fail to realize the true value of the data analysis and information they can glean and the improved business decisions, course corrections and customer, supplier, and partner satisfaction they can achieve.When an organization manufactures a product, it spends time, and resources to get that product out the door. In order to make money, the business must complete the process – get the product out the door, into the supply chain and into the hands of its customers, and other stakeholders. Perhaps that product will be combined with another product to produce an end result that is purchased by a customer. Perhaps, the product will fill the shelves of a retailer, or be used in a service industry, like auto mechanics.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are de rigueur these days, and that is a good thing for business. After all, it is hard to accurately plan for success when you are guessing at every turn. While small and large businesses alike are establishing KPIs, there is one thing that is not so de rigueur and that is establishing KPIs that are appropriate, objective, measurable and actionable! Yet, without those important considerations, KPIs aren’t worth the paper they are printed on – or the computer screen they are displayed on!
Appropriate Metrics: Let’s say that you own a company called, ‘Widgets Plus’ and that company manufactures (what else?) widgets. Among the factors that will affect business success: the quality and dependability of the widgets, competitive pricing of the widgets, supplying the right variety of widget sizes, and the timely supply of widgets to your customers. In order to establish appropriate metrics, the management team must focus on the key components of success rather than measuring the number of pens the staff used in the month of August or the average shipping costs for technical manuals. Of course, Widgets Plus cares about its expenses and it is in their best interests to control those expenses, but key metrics must focus on the things that are critical to business success, sales, corporate reputation, competitive positioning and product or service sales.
The good news is that today’s business and IT managers are excited about business intelligence and value it can bring to the organization, its users and its bottom line. The bad news is that, in their zeal to run headlong into the business intelligence market, many businesses are making missteps and mistakes that will haunt them and diminish the value of the business intelligence solution, thereby degrading ROI and TCO.
A business can make numerous missteps on the path to business intelligence. Here are just a few of them:
Tally ERP provides small to medium sized (SME) businesses with an accounting and inventory management solution. This solution is very popular among SMEs on the Indian subcontinent, in the Middle East, Far East, and Africa and other countries around the world. It is affordable, and easy to use for accounting and inventory management. Tally is a popular solution for small to medium sized companies in all types of industries. In Parts I thru IV of this article series, we discussed the need for expanding SMEs to consider an integrated Business Intelligence Solution that will provide more comprehensive, sophisticated, personalized and mobile views and analysis of integrated data from Tally ERP and other enterprise solutions. Parts I thru IV of this article series focused on reporting capabilities, integrated data compilation and analysis, mobile, secured access to data, and data mining and user personalization. Part V of this five part article series focuses on the importance and benefits of a self-serve business intelligence environment that will allow Tally ERP users to continue to leverage this solution as well as other technology investments.
Elegant MicroWeb has announced the launch of a major version of its flagship Business Intelligence Suite, ElegantJ BI. Version 4.0 is set to transform the way Business Intelligence Solutions are used and deployed. The new version has a fresh, redesigned user interface and offers intuitive user experience across desktops, laptops, mobiles, and tablets regardless of the client device platform.
ElegantJ BI Version 4.0 with a new interface will make using the product a real delight, whether you are designing a dashboard or doing deep dive analysis. Utilizing the latest technology, ElegantJ BI is 100% browser based and does not need any native apps or plugins. Using responsive technology, the interface will let you have the complete power of Business Intelligence on a laptop, a tablet, or on your smartphone, as each dashboard, graph, KPI, or analysis will resize and render itself optimally based on the shape and size of the target device.
The business intelligence software market is growing rapidly around the world, and with good reason. Business owners and managers are well aware of the importance of fact-driven, performance-driven business decisions and results. But, there is one thing that many businesses overlook when they are considering and selecting BI tools, namely, the importance of business intelligence democratization.
If a business is to be successful, it must engage and align its employees with the strategic, operational and tactical goals of the enterprise and link empowerment and accountability to these goals.
