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Okay, we’ve chatted about Power BI time and time again – you’re probably well familiar with its incredible features by now.
But just in case you need to hear it from the horse’s mouth, our Business Development Director, Jordan Brookes, is here to share his seven key reasons why you should adopt the Power BI platform.
Always keen to leverage the newest technology to stay ahead of the curve, Jordan is a fan of Power BI for enabling us to better serve our clients. Here’s how using it could help you do the same…
With all your data in one place, Power BI has the power to unlock invaluable insights about your business – from monitoring product sales to finding gaps in organisational processes.
By compiling all your data from various platforms and channels and turning it into easy-to-read, intuitive visualisations, all employees on every level will be able to make data-led, impactful decisions. Because Power BI is so easy to use, it doesn’t require a data analyst or an IT professional to access and manage it, meaning everyone within the business can feel empowered and closer to the heart of the action.
Getting started with Power BI dashboards is quick and uncomplicated, meaning there’s no waiting around to see that precious ROI.
For example, all of your data sources can be connected to Power BI in less than a minute, meaning there’s no lengthy set-up process. With in-built integrations such as Excel, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Jira and much more, you can have all your data in one place from the get-go.
When it comes to getting individual users set up, Power BI makes it easy to set up user levels and access permissions, so long as you have a good idea of your data governance strategy ahead of time. And thanks to its incredibly intuitive dashboard and drag-and-drop interface, almost anyone can start using Power BI straight away, without the need for additional training beforehand. If they get stuck, all of Power BI’s educational resources are available for free.
Power BI’s dashboards can be accessed from any laptop, tablet or phone, meaning you can keep your eye on emerging trends wherever you are. This also helps to keep employees in the loop, with the option to share with team-mates or clients on the move.
If you’re concerned about the security risks of accessing sensitive data over a mobile connection, know that the Power BI mobile app comes with full Enterprise Mobility and Security compatibility, meaning you can rest easy knowing your company information stays safe. You also have the option of using Power BI’s flexible permission controls, so only those who need to know certain information can access it from their mobile devices.
Part of the beauty of Power BI is that data sources can be pushed into dashboards in real-time, meaning users can make meaningful decisions based on the most accurate data.
This is incredibly important for conserving time and resources, as out-of-date, inaccurate, or missing data can mean employees need to go searching for the right data before they can move forward. It also enables employees to act quickly within periods of pressure or high demand, limiting the possibility of making decisions that could do more harm than good.
Gone are the days when data needs to be manually downloaded, before reuploading it to another platform in order to be cleaned, processed or visualised. Power BI does this all in one go by staying permanently connected to your data sources, meaning you’ll never have to download a dataset again.
Simply jump in, see your data in real-time and start discovering its potential.
Power BI comes with no upfront costs, so you can get started using Power BI desktop directly without any obligation or license fees. This means you can take your time finding your feet and creating your first report, seeing how Power BI could benefit your business before making a commitment.
If and when you’re ready to level up, know that Power BI Pro still costs two to three times less than its leading competitors, with the option to add additional data capacity without purchasing extra license fees (if over 1000 users).
For more advanced users, Power BI can be used to streamline various processes with its artificial intelligence features. These include image recognition, text analytics and machine learning integration directly from within the platform.
All these new AI capabilities were pioneered in Azure and require no code, enabling all Power BI users to discover hidden, actionable insights in their data and drive better business outcomes.
At Bespoke, we help businesses like yours unlock the full potential of their data through custom solutions, including Microsoft Power BI. Talk to the team today to learn more about Power BI and how we can help you with one of our friendly Power BI consultants.
Business Intelligence is a suite of software and analysis tools that transforms raw data into tremendous information and insights for any business. But for it to work effectively, it requires a culture of data-empowerment where data ownership is centralised and everybody is able to make use of the insights BI has to offer.
Traditionally, many organisations have placed data ownership into the hands of a single person or team, which can be a huge risk for data security and may even have wide-spread consequences for the business as a whole. For example, if the single BI keyholder happens to leave the business, certain data may not be able to be amended or added to, or worse, may not be able to be accessed at all. At worst this could lead to a huge security breach, but even if not, it majorly slows down processes and employee productivity.
Let’s take a deeper look at why creating a data-empowered workforce is so essential in getting the most from your business intelligence.
First of all, it’s important to remember that BI can and may be utilised by several teams and individuals throughout the business.
This means making sure that BI is accessible not just for different departments, but also customised for the different levels of users across the organisation.
The below are four typical examples of business intelligence users. Bear in mind that this list is in no way exhaustive, as users of BI can come in all types and forms.
1. Data Analyst
The data analyst is typically the one who drills deep down into the data. A robust BI platform enables them to do just this, so they can gather new insights and expand on business techniques.
2. IT user
The IT user plays a prominent role in maintaining and strengthening the BI platform’s infrastructure. In some organisations, they might also be the main BI keyholder, responsible for assisting other teams with data requests.
3. Owner/CEO
The owner or CEO will use BI to gain a relevant picture of how things are performing across the company, and take necessary steps to increase efficiency and boost revenue.
4. Business User
General business intelligence users will be distributed in various teams across the business. They can fall into one of two categories: the informal business user (who uses dashboards to analyse predetermined sets of data) and the power user (those capable of toiling complex data sets).
Many major BI systems such as Microsoft’s Power BI are cloud-based, making them not just incredibly versatile and intuitive, but highly secure too.
Non-custom built data management platforms, such as Excel, lack the security of a cloud-based system as they typically place the ownership or governance in the hands of one person or team. This not only makes it tough for other employees to get the data insights they need, but also places the security of your data at risk.
If the username and password of the person responsible for creating the Excel sheets (or those of a person with editing privileges) were stolen, that means the person who now has access to the sheets can do anything with the data – from deleting it to stealing confidential client details.
According to new research by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, nearly 90% of organisations say success depends on data-driven decisions made by frontline employees. However, only 7% of organisations are fully equipping their teams with the analytic tools and resources needed to drive decision-making and autonomy.
This lack of control over information impedes the ability of 70% of businesses to meet strategic objectives (Finextra, 2019). For 84% of these, information is typically processed by IT, who aren’t always able to juggle this responsibility with their numerous other priorities. This means that other teams may struggle to get hold of data they need to carry out certain tasks, and also won’t have full visibility of the organisation’s data management needs.
Part of implementing a transformative data strategy involves making data accessible to all those who need it. It’s also about empowering all employees across all departments to have a mentality whereby data underpins all business decisions. According to McKinsey Global Institute, companies who adopt a data-driven culture are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, six times more likely to retain and 19 times as likely to be profitable as a result.
There are, therefore, a few essential best practices in using business intelligence that can elevate its impact on your business.
It’s already been established that organisations with higher data literacy rates have greater enterprise value. It’s important to give all employees access to BI tools that are easy to learn and use, build confidence, increase adoption and empower every user – no matter their role or level.
More access and wider ownership doesn’t have to come at the expense of data security. Keep data and analytics secure through a system that lets administrators set rules based on users, actions and resources. This means that everybody has access to the data they need – and nothing that they don’t.
Are you ready to start bringing the power of data to your employees’ fingertips? At Bespoke, we enable you to create a data-empowered workforce with our range of business intelligence solutions.
Get in touch today to arrange a free consultation.
Microsoft’s Power BI uncovers data-driven insights in the healthcare industry that can improve clinical decision-making while transforming operations and outcomes.
The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted the healthcare industry to undergo a dramatic change in the way it works, from the reinvention of facilities to providing transparency in patient care.
If nothing else, it’s been a crisis that has forced the industry to think on its feet at a time when it is generating probably more data and insightful information than ever before.
As a result, it’s never been more important to transform this real time data into insightful reports and visualisations – and that’s where Power BI comes in.
A cloud-based analytics service, Power BI provides a fully integrated view of vital data by enabling users to monitor the performance of their business using live dashboards.
It can also generate visual and fully interactive reports with Power BI Desktop, while Power BI Mobile applications allow access to data while on the move.
Users are also presented with interactive data visualisations and business intelligence, giving them a capability for data analytics within a simple-to-use intuitive environment.
Power BI can help healthcare providers make the most of their vital data while offering an economical method for communicating information to those throughout the sector.
By integrating Power BI, providers are able to develop the insights required to limit costs and improve patient care while observing strict compliance rules and regulations.
It can also provide organisations with greater visibility into their data, providing them with greater insights for their key performance indicators by utilising technology.
What’s more the Power BI dashboard allows users to monitor hospital and healthcare quality indicators such as:
Healthcare data can be complicated as organisations and authorities look to track everything from patient satisfaction scores to waiting times to staffing schedules; but Power BI makes it possible to generate detailed, yet easy-to-understand, overviews in order to find pivotal trends.
It can provide timely critical care responses, especially in emergency situations, by empowering healthcare professionals across the board to easily access data, while collaborating, and sharing insights.
By embedding Power BI reports and dashboards within the hospital apps and portals they already use, it can give care teams the data they need for their vital day-to-day decision making – enabling faster reactions and better results.
If that wasn’t enough, it can also safeguard sensitive data using access controls and governance policies which securely provide care teams access to the data they need.
Other Benefits:
Power BI can help providers to constructively use their data while putting the findings into context for everyone from nurses and physicians to executives and administrators – something which had not been possible before.
One of the most economical methods for communicating information to people across the healthcare organisation, it also ensures that high-level data is represented in detail, not to mention a safe and controlled manner.
What’s more, being cloud based, it allows users to keep dashboard reports updated which can then be accessed by numerous employees across a range of devices for greater transparency – even when on the move.
Implementing Power BI could not be easier, allowing providers to reap its many benefits immediately.
The desktop version of Power BI comes at no initial cost with the option to purchase Power BI Pro plan to share capabilities with multiple users while Power BI Premium is available at a slightly greater cost.
What’s more, it’s compatible with other Microsoft products, meaning you can adapt to the software quickly and easily if you’re accustomed to using Office 365 applications.
If you’re a healthcare provider and interested in learning more about how Power BI can help you reduce costs and improve patient care, while adhering to strict compliance regulations, we’re here for you.
Bespoke can help your business get started with Power BI and set you on your way to data-driven success.
We’ve even created a free guide on introducing your company to the Power Platform, including sharing its powerful benefits with decision-makers and stakeholders which you can download here.
So if you think it’s time to embrace the changes brought about by Power BI, contact us today for a demonstration.
In a world of ‘big data’ and information, more and more businesses are striving towards digital transformation as a way to keep up with the ever-changing technological landscape.
So what exactly is digital transformation and why should you be making it a focus for 2021? Here, we’ve outlined everything you need to know about this increasing business trend.
Digital transformation has taken on many meanings in today’s digital era of big data and data management. The truth is, it’s a term that can mean multiple things to different businesses, depending on a company’s main priorities and overarching end goal.
Broadly speaking, digital transformation is the practice of integrating digital technology into all areas of a business, significantly changing how it operates and provides value to customers. In doing this, digital transformation also requires businesses to rethink old models, become more agile in responding to new problems, get comfortable with failure and continually challenge the status quo.
According to Jay Ferro, CIO of Quikrete, digital transformation should begin with “a problem statement, clear opportunity, or an aspirational goal” – basically, your company’s ‘why’. This could revolve around improving customer experience or increasing productivity, or something more aspirational, like becoming the absolute best in your industry using new digital technologies you didn’t have years ago.
There are several reasons a business may decide to take on a project of digital transformation. But for many, the most basic and common reason is survival – they simply have to.
An organisation’s ability to adapt quickly to potential manufacturing disruptions, market pressures and changing customer demands is critical to its long-term success. This has become even more apparent in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic, when consumer habits shifted dramatically and businesses were faced with totally new and unprecedented challenges.
Recent studies show that increasingly the digital transformation process is being viewed as a long-term investment, with relevant initiatives set to take over a 50% share of worldwide technology investment by 2023. Technology is no longer just a choice – it’s a fundamental business strategy that must be part of wider operative-initiatives.
Five common ways that digital transformation can help your business are:
As just mentioned, data and analytics can play a key role in an organisation’s digital transformation efforts. Stats show that fewer than 50% of documented corporate strategies mention data and analytics as essential components for delivering enterprise value, according to Gartner, but this is changing. By 2022, it is predicted that 90% of corporate strategies will mention big data and analytics as a critical enterprise asset.
The answer, therefore, is clear: data and analytics competency should be paramount within your business for digital transformation success. This means defining a strong data strategy and implementing the relevant data transformation methods in order to make the absolute most of the information available.
Leading organisations in various industries are wielding data and analytics as competitive weapons, using them to accelerate growth and inspire innovation. But many companies still struggle under the weight of their traditional business models and processes that may not allow for the potential that data and analytics can bring. Others may also not be able to make the cultural shift needed to work with big data, or commit to the information management and analytics skills needed to truly make the most of its power.
Here at Bespoke, we provide various solutions to help you transform your data strategy. From direct consultancy to our range of out-of-the-box automation and analysis tools, we can guide you every step of the way towards making the most of big data. Simply get in touch to arrange a free initial consultation with one of our experts.
It wouldn’t be entirely surprising for companies to ask: is there an end to digital transformation? How can we know when we have reached it? When will we be able to say we have truly achieved digital transformation?
A more relevant question might be, what comes after digital transformation? Is there a next phase, and what will we call it?
Gartner has named the period beyond digital transformation as the ‘ContinuousNext’, which will reflect the capabilities all companies need to keep up with the continuous change driven by technology.
ContinuousNext is a formula for success in a world that is constantly changing…”through and beyond digital transformation”. Meanwhile, Accenture is naming this period as the “post-digital era”.
Overall however, industry experts agree that digital transformation is a continuous process, as technology will always continue to advance rapidly, coupled with ever-changing consumer behaviours. Rather than view digital transformation as an end goal, organisations will have to consider it a constant process that will enable them to adapt, evolve, and drive forward change within their field. Ideally, it is the state of flow that all businesses should be striving for.
Get in touch to find out how Digital Transformation can revolutionise your business.
Most small businesses often start out using Excel for their accounting and data management needs. However, this strategy is only doable up to a point.
Although the popular spreadsheet application can do a large number of tasks and is easily available worldwide. It isn’t a long-term solution. This is because while the program itself is sturdy, the spreadsheets created using it aren’t. This often leads to problems later on – which we’ll go into shortly.
Eventually, there comes a time when businesses may need to look at alternative software for their developing needs. This usually involves a move to cloud-based software.
Before we get started, let’s first establish what we mean when we talk about ‘moving to the cloud’.
‘Cloud computing’ is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the internet. ‘The cloud’ refers to servers that are hosted in data management centres all over the world and accessed over the internet, as well as the software and databases that run on those servers. By using cloud computing, users and companies don’t have to manage physical servers themselves or run software applications on their own machines – freeing up a lot of space and resources.
A ‘move to the cloud’ (also known as cloud migration) is the process of moving digital assets such as data, workloads, IT resources, or applications to cloud infrastructure. This might mean moving tools and data from old, legacy infrastructure or an ‘on-premises’ data management centre to the cloud.
Although Excel is an excellent spreadsheet application, it is just that: a spreadsheet application. Many businesses unknowingly try to use the platform for purposes other than what it was designed for or overwhelm it with data and processes it was not meant to handle. This can lead to a myriad of problems, from the small and inconvenient to the large and disastrous.
Here are just a few examples:
Excel lacks the security of a cloud-based system. Imagine the username and password of the person responsible for creating the Excel sheets (or those of a person with editing privileges) were stolen. That means the person who now has access to the sheets can do anything with the data – from deleting to stealing confidential client details.
As the size of data in a spreadsheet grows, the application’s performance plummets. When simultaneous access is added to the mix, things can come to a grinding halt – if the users can open the sheet at all. Many users run into these performance issues when they work with large amounts of data or combine lots of worksheets.
Excel also doesn’t integrate easily with other business applications, which can cause problems with data duplication or overlap.
So long as manual data entry, copy-paste techniques and formula errors are a reality, there is always a risk to the accuracy of data, and spreadsheets can be riddled with mistakes.
As people work with Excel sheets, they may make changes to the main file such as hiding columns or tabs, of which others may not be aware if changes are not communicated, leading to incorrect or incomplete reports. Another problem is that some people may prefer to work on a local version of the file in case there is an error, meaning multiple copies of the same workbook can be passed around the office, inevitably leading to a version mix-up.
Because Excel files don’t have an audit trail, it’s almost impossible to track who did what after a file has been edited a few times by multiple people. This can have a real impact on accountability and data recovery. After all, if you don’t know what was updated, by whom, and on what date how will you be able to restore the original data?
Setting up an Excel spreadsheet that meets all of your financial or data collection needs requires a lot of forethought and planning. It often takes time to set up formulas and reporting and requires manual tracking. You may find your business constantly adding or changing the information on the spreadsheet, which can be a poor use of employee time.
Creating forms to manage data input can also be time-consuming and difficult. Even when done correctly, the forms won’t have enough methods to control and validate inputs from the users, meaning there is always the chance of erroneous data capturing.
Cloud-based software is a definite step up from Excel in a number of ways. As well as being scalable, cost-effective and tailored to your business needs, it also guarantees maximum up-time and does highly secure backups on the regular, meaning you never have to think or worry about your data’s integrity.
Unlimited users are allowed, each with their own access levels so that employees only see what they need to see, and sensitive data isn’t out in the wild. Cloud storage also alleviates the pressure (and costs) of providing data storage on the premises.
Let’s look into the benefits of cloud-based software in a little more detail.
Cloud computing can scale up to support larger workloads and greater numbers of users far more easily than on-premises infrastructure. The latter option requires businesses to purchase and set up additional physical servers, networking equipment, or software licenses – all of which can be very costly (see below).
Companies often find that moving to the cloud vastly reduces the amount they spend on IT operations since their cloud providers handle maintenance and upgrades. Rather than think about keeping things running, businesses can focus more on their actual business goals and getting ahead in their chosen market.
If an application or website is hosted in cloud data management centres instead of in various on-premise servers, then data will not have to travel as far to reach the users. This enables many businesses to significantly improve service performance and the overall user experience for their customers.
Both employees and customers can access the cloud services they need from anywhere. This opens up various business opportunities such as expanding into new territories and allowing their employees to work remotely.
Cloud-based users will also be able to take advantage of other apps that sync with their existing data. This means processes like inventory management, invoicing and client data collection will become a whole lot easier, saving time and reducing costs.
Most cloud-based systems come with an easy-to-use dashboard which you don’t have to set up yourself, giving your employees confidence from the get-go. When a business has a clear financial view from the very start, it can make better strategic decisions.
All real-time financial (and other) data is kept in one central place – online, in the cloud. There’s no need to wait until the month-end to see how things are going – with just a few clicks, real-time reports and budgets are easy to view and share.
Historical data is also always available at your fingertips, and a proper audit trail ensures your data cannot be compromised.
Cloud-based software allows you to create the information any of your customers or stakeholders might need at a moment’s notice, and with more automation and less manual data entry, mistakes and errors are exceptionally rare.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Excel is highly adaptable and basically free. If your business is just starting out and your data is relatively straightforward, an Excel workbook with one administrator could be the best choice. However, even small businesses eventually tend to outgrow their spreadsheets and have to make the move to a cloud-based system.
A move to the cloud can be stressful, but it is often the best choice for organisations that require data confidentiality, access by multiple users, and ease in reporting.
Get in touch if you think there is something Bespoke could help your business with.
In its simplest form, business intelligence (BI) is a set of tools and technologies that can take a source of operational data and turn it into something meaningful and actionable for users.
Becoming an ever-growing technology leveraged by businesses around the world, BI services are widely diversified and are helping companies make powerful decisions that contribute significantly to their success.
Power BI is a cloud-based business intelligence service provided by Microsoft. It is an interactive data visualisation and analytics tool. That can be used to clean and completely transform data from a wide range of systems into meaningful insights.
Users of Power BI can create dashboards that track the metrics they care about the most. Or drill in and (literally) ask questions about their data. The tool also allows them to create rich reports or embed dashboards and reports into reporting portals you already use.
Thanks to Power BI, Microsoft has been recognised by Gartner for the 13th year in a row as a leader in the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.
Power BI is transforming how businesses work in more ways than one. Here are some of the ways it could change yours.
Thanks to its huge choice of content packs, templates and integrations, Power BI can be used to visualise data from a whole heap of products, apps and services you already use in your business.
Whether you use Xero for accounting, K2 Cloud to build business processes, or Salesforce, Mailchimp, Google Analytics or GitHub, Power BI allows you to visualise the data you have in those services, create reports against them and collate them in a custom dashboard.
This superior compatibility also includes unparalleled Excel integration. Quickly connect Excel queries, data models, and reports to Power BI dashboards in order to analyse, publish and share business data in new ways.
Additionally, businesses can set up the on-premises gateway to explore data sets on their own servers. This enables them to create reports, visualisations, perform calculations (called calculated measures) and set access levels for individual users and data sources to control who can view more sensitive information.
Power BI gives you insight into powerful real-time analytics – from factory sensors to social media sources. This places them firmly on the cusp of emerging trends, ready to act (or react) accordingly.
It’s one thing to gain insight into the here and now, but what about into the future? Power BI enables you to compare different scenarios by dragging a slider bar to show potential changes.
For example, if you add a calculated measure for a figure such as revenue, you can use the New Parameter button in Power BI Desktop to add parameters that change in your What-if scenario – setting the data type, minimum, maximum and increments.
This enables businesses to think outside of the immediate circumstances and make well-planned, strategic decisions to match pre-empted outcomes.
Information is powerful…but in some cases, it can also be overwhelming. Power BI’s Power KPI custom visualisation combines multiple report types into a single tile, enabling users to condense lots of metrics and complex visualisations into a clearer, more simplistic view.
For example, if executives happened to be tracking 20 or 30 metrics, possibly for multiple regions around the world, it’s better to present this at a glance to stakeholders without them becoming overwhelmed with too many charts and figures. It also makes it easy for the user to look up information quickly in meetings. This means not just faster access, but also more transparency and understanding all around.
It’s not just business users who have large amounts of information they need to distil down for insights.
IT can also benefit from visualising data for IT monitoring tools, which is provided by the Power BI solution template for Azure Activity Logs. There are templates for a range of other tools too, and IT users can build their own dashboards and reports for other tools as long as they can get the data into a SQL Server or Azure SQL database.
Without access to company-wide BI software, the IT department can also become an overburdened and over-relied team to provide valuable company data, dashboards and reports. Constant requests to IT to change reports can quickly lead to bottlenecks and decreased productivity, which only leads to slowing down business output elsewhere.
A robust BI solution, on the other hand, empowers business users with self-service analysis, reporting, and dashboarding. This helps to place the power of data back into the users’ hands, who actually benefit from analysing data to meet business goals.
While spreadsheets, reports, and charts are crucial to operations, the overall purpose of Power BI is to offer a global health picture of what’s driving your business.
Without a clear picture telling you what’s impacting your top line and bottom KPIs, your business won’t be able to make truly informed decisions. The real value of business analytics is to deliver clear and actionable data that will have a significant positive impact on your business – exactly what Power BI aims to provide.
Bespoke can help your business get started with Power BI and see you on your way to data-driven success. Contact us for a demo today and to speak with us about Microsoft BI consultancy.
In the meantime, be sure to download our free guide on introducing your company to the Power Platform, including sharing its powerful benefits with decision-makers and stakeholders.
