Julian Human: Squeeze the last ounce of information from your data!

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Chancellor Osborne’s recent admission that the recovery will be choppy means there’s all the more reason for businesses to make the most of one of their existing valuable assets: their data. Julian Human, Head of  Market Development for Business Intelligence at Business & Decision, gives his take on the data challenges facing midsize companies and how best to make data ‘happen’ for business advantage.

 

 

The data mountain

Data is an invaluable commodity for any business; after all, even the lowliest administrator accumulates mountains of the stuff every day from CRM and other information gathering tools - everything from customers’  sales patterns and credit worthiness to their propensity to complain. It makes sense, therefore, to help your employees create value from that treasure trove of untapped data.

All too often, though, staff waste valuable time juggling information in different spreadsheets, databases and software programs; when what they really need is to have the right information at the right time and in the right format - in other words, basic business intelligence (or BI). By collecting, consolidating and collating data held in line-of-business processes, BI helps everyone - from MD to delivery driver – do their job better.

The good news for many organisations is that they already own the key to getting a better handle on their business data. That’s because, unlike stand-alone applications, Microsoft BI simply calls upon the familiar software tools that companies use on a daily basis: SQL Server as their information platform, SharePoint Server for business collaboration, and the Excel spreadsheet program, which connects neatly into back-end servers.

This means that midsized organisations can now extract and share the same depth of knowledge about their operations as larger organisations who can afford more expensive specialist packages - a fact endorsed by the analyst Forrester in its 2010 Enterprise BI Platforms Wave report, which concludes that: ‘Microsoft’s fewer, less complex features can be rolled out to and used by many more users [than competitive BI offerings].’

BI in action

Businesses generally have lots of great data, but often don’t know how best to deal with it. Most will therefore be pleasantly surprised to find that their existing desktop technology offers them a central repository through which to make their “hidden” data accessible to more people in the organisation. What they also need, though, is:

  • Availability: in many cases, businesses depends heavily on 24/7 connectivity. Windows Server solves this problem by giving employees ‘anywhere’ access to centrally held files; and since it works seamlessly with the Cloud, staff can be more connected than they’ve ever been: for example, anyone out on the road or in a branch office has instant access to corporate information. This turns the key to making data useful because they need never again be disconnected from their customers, financials, or from their ability to manage customer accounts.
  • Secure data management: Another concern for many businesses is that nowadays employees receive third-party data from disparate sources over which they have little control. This means they can encounter any number of data quality and ‘masked’ data issues that render information unusable or unreliable. Microsoft has addressed this issue in its latest release of SQL Server 2008 (codenamed “Denali”) by adding data enhancement tools like Master Data Services (MDS).

MDS enables information workers to create, modify and report on the data they consume in a controlled and secure way as part of a managed workflow, and then leverage this data across the broader organisation. They can also use it to manage any line of business activity since it's not specific to managing lists of customers, products, or accounts. As well as reducing their reliance on IT pros, MDS enables staff to continue working in familiar tools like Excel, while centralising the storage of the data they use on a daily basis.

  • Agility: in today’s highly competitive economy, companies must respond quickly to changing market conditions. SQL Server 2008 gives them the flexible and deep database management tools to do so. Business decision-makers can, for instance,  quickly establish how many goods of a certain type they’ve sold in a given period and compare those figures with previous years. If they discover that sales of a product have dipped, they can then trigger remedial actions, such as launching a promotional campaign to rekindle interest in that item. Well-timed analysis of this kind delivers the level of insight needed to keep a business agile and competitive.

 

  • Scalability: in these straitened times, companies are understandably reluctant to over-commit to new technology, yet most are concerned about the future. Microsoft’s BI solutions scale to the growing needs of your business and provide the agility to respond quickly to change. PowerPivot, a free spreadsheet option in Excel 2010, for instance, enables employees to quickly unlock around four times more data than was previously possible with Excel. It lets them ‘slice and dice’ data, and then share their findings with others in the business via SharePoint Server 2010. This kind of ‘self-service’ capability enables decision-makers at all levels to gather and analyse data from different sources to help improve their performance.

Affordable and available to all

Until recently, this level of secure availability, agility and scalability was not readily affordable by midsize organisations, which meant useful information often remained hidden because the specialist packages offered by BI vendors tended to be pre-structured and focused solely on end-to-end solutions. Microsoft BI now gives teams or entire departments the flexibility to create and share real-time reports in familiar programs, using information which is continually being updated in databases linked to their existing SharePoint Server.

What all this means is that medium-sized businesses now have at their disposal the kind of business intelligence that large enterprises have enjoyed for years - without worrying that the technology is either too complex or unaffordable. By making more effective use of the familiar Microsoft technologies they already own, businesses have the ability to efficiently manage and integrate data in existing databases, data warehouses and applications. The payoff is a massive reduction in the time-to-solution from idea to delivery.

The difference between surviving and thriving

It’s perhaps not surprising, therefore, that Microsoft was recently heralded by analyst Gartner as a Leader in its Business Intelligence Platforms Magic Quadrant. According to the report, “Gartner's view is that the market for BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets despite sluggish economic growth in most regions. Organisations continue to turn to BI as a vital tool for smarter, more agile and efficient business.”

At the same time, Forrester cautions: “Enterprises that do not squeeze the last ounce of information out of their data stores and applications, and that do not focus on getting strategic, tactical and operational insight into their customers, products, business processes and operations, risk falling behind competitors.”

It goes without saying that better insight can mean the difference between surviving and thriving. Microsoft’s focus on making data more accessible is what differentiates it and enables everyone to make faster, more relevant decisions.