Is your organization still using Excel as its main tool to process and analyze business data? If so, it may be time for the next step toward becoming a data-driven organization: a BI system. Why? We are happy to explain that here. And of course we offer you an alternative!
Good information is vital for any business, whatever your mission statement . Many organizations have more data than they think; data that, at the right time in the hands of the right employees, can provide faster and better decision-making. But often the data provision is not in good order, causing employees to fall back on the time-honored gut feeling or - slightly less old - Excel.
Suppose you are a board member, department head or analyst at a company. You best understand the importance of accurate information; after all, you regularly use your Excel reports. You know the most important formulas, you know where most of the data should come from, and you have extensive spreadsheets containing the most important business results. In short, you're already serious about business intelligence, also known as business intelligence or BI.
The problems with Excel
Unfortunately, to create reports you often have to manually enter (new) data over and over again. This is tedious, time-consuming and error-prone work, especially if you are working with several people in the same file. What's more, it's not getting any easier as more and more business systems working completely in the cloud prefer not to export their data, or only in foreign file formats. In addition, sensitive business information and personal data are difficult to protect if you can't control who has access to what data, or if loose data files are floating around on hard drives or in mailboxes.
And then once you have all the data together and your report is built ... Tell me honestly, is this really the clearest report you can imagine? Are you sure everything is in there? Probably not. Excel is a great program, but in terms of automation, security and clarity, it simply no longer meets today's standards for a modern BI system.
The alternative: a BI system
A BI system is (usually) a collection of multiple tools, which together take care of four core tasks in the data pipeline. They are: collection, management, analysis and presentation.
This works as follows: first, the data is retrieved - at set times - from all the various business systems and collected at a central and secure location. There, where necessary, the data is cleaned, merged and prepared for analysis - some of which already takes place centrally - according to set rules. This ensures that everyone in the company uses the same data as a starting point ("one source of truth"), and that all end users only have access to the data they need or are allowed to see.
Your colleagues and staff can then feel free to use the data for further (ad hoc) analysis and presentation. You often use visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI for this purpose. This is because data visualizations are faster and more accurate to read than tables with small numbers. It is also easier to discover interesting trends or patterns, you can enable interaction with and between visualizations, and presentation becomes a breeze.
The Information Lab has been a specialist in providing customized BI solutions for almost 10 years. We work with the largest and most reliable systems like Snowflake, Alteryx and Tableau to complete all steps in the BI process according to best practices. Want to know more about our vision and approach? Then read the full white paper here. Do you prefer personal contact? So do we. You can reach us at info@theinformationlab.nl and 020 261 4741. Or leave your details here and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
* Image rights: Milajopython, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Excel.png