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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.
To those less in-the-know, data can easily come off as being quite a dry subject. Numbers? Graphs? Comparisons? Without the tools to understand or manage data’s complexities, it can all seem a little overwhelming.
But when you have the power to unlock the stories data tells, it opens up a whole door of exciting narratives and intriguing discoveries. And the data can be about anything – from your favourite TV show to how you like to organise your spending.
Here at Bespoke, we’ve been having some fun with data lately. Take a look at the three Power BI dashboard examples below created with Microsoft Power BI, which share some pretty thrilling insights…
We’re sure you’ll agree that everyone is keeping a close eye on the UK’s covid-19 vaccination rollout right now. We decided to compile all the current stats on vaccinations in this easy-to-view Power BI dashboard, so you can stay close to the action as it unfolds.
The map on the left gives a top-down view of the most vaccinated areas in the UK, while the filters in the top right enable you to check the progress of vaccinations in your local area and by age.
Flip on over to the second page and we can compare the UK’s progress with the rest of the world, checking out the most vaccinated countries and seeing the number of vaccination doses administered so far.
To celebrate May 4th, we decided to delve deep into the minutae of our favourite film saga, Star Wars.
Whether or not you’re a fan of the multi-million dollar franchise, few can deny its monumental success that spans several movies, comic books and video games, and brought us characters and adventures we’ll never forget. One might say there’s only one way to handle so much data…and that’s of course with a Power BI dashboard.
Did you know that out of the first six Star Wars films, the Phantom Menace received the highest box office takings, but has the poorest ratings?
Or that C-3PO, Obi-Wan Kenobi and R2-D2 were the only characters to appear in every one of the first six films?
Explore our interactive dashboard to learn which films had the biggest budgets, which ones won the critics’ approval, and even which starships had the biggest hyperdrive (and crew). Learn fascinating facts about your favourite characters – from Boba Fett’s birth year to Chewbacca’s eye colour. It’s all in there.
Climate change is a pressing topic at the moment, and rightly so. With global greenhouse gas emissions rising at a worrying rate since the start of the industrial era, and the UN calling for dramatic systematic change, we reckoned there was only one thing to do with all of the scattered data out there – bring it all into one place.
Our GHG emissions data dashboard takes a look at the global impact of three major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. See which countries have lowered their emissions the most in the last 10 years; which industries are responsible for emitting the most gases, and how the correlation between GDP and emissions has changed over the years – and still continues to change.
This dashboard is full of amazing insights, all of which help us to gain a much-needed clearer picture on the climate crisis.
Hopefully you’ll know by now that data isn’t just a bunch of numbers or observations. Data is a powerful storytelling tool we can use to reveal incredible things about the lives we lead and the world we’re a part of. We can use it to stay informed about important issues, make impactful decisions…and maybe even have a little fun too.
Are you ready to get playful with your data? Get in touch with our team of experts who can help you find new ways to unlock stories about your business.
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.
Most businesses collect far more data than they ever use. It comes in from your finance system, your CRM, your operations tools and the spreadsheets people keep on their own desktops.
Gathering it is the easy part. Knowing what to do with it is where most organisations get stuck.
So here’s the short answer. There are five things you can actually do with your data:
The rest of this blog takes each one in turn, with the Microsoft tools that make it practical and a sense of what good looks like.
Data on its own does nothing. It sits in storage, costing money, waiting.
It becomes useful the moment it changes something. A decision made with more confidence. An afternoon of manual work saved.
The problem is rarely a shortage of data. It’s that the data lives in too many places, in formats that don’t talk to each other. Getting a straight answer means someone exporting from three systems and stitching it together in Excel by hand, and by the time the report is ready the moment to act has passed.
Everything below closes that gap between having data and getting something out of it.
The most immediate thing you can do with your data is see it clearly.
A dashboard built in Power BI pulls figures from across your systems into one live view, so your sales numbers and your operating costs sit side by side and update on their own. Nobody waits for the monthly report. The people making decisions can see where things stand at any point and act on it.
We worked with Otsuka to move their reporting off Excel and into Power BI. That cut 4 days of manual processing and gave the team that time back for the decisions themselves rather than the spreadsheets behind them.
Good analytics answers the questions you already ask every week, faster and with less doubt about whether the numbers are right.
Once your data is in order, it can do more than report the past. It can give you a fair view of what happens next.
Forecasting reads the patterns in your history and projects them forward: the stock you’ll need next quarter, or the customers drifting towards leaving before they actually go.
Power BI and Microsoft Fabric bring machine learning into this without a data science team on staff, so the modelling runs on your own numbers and updates as new data arrives.
Seeing a shift early gives you room to plan around it, while you still have options.
A lot of what people call working with data isn’t analysis at all. It’s admin.
It’s the low-value handling that fills a working week:
Power Automate takes that off their plate. Invoices get captured and logged without manual entry. Records update across systems the moment something changes. Reports build and send on a schedule with nobody touching them.
We automated our own invoice processing and cut invoice handling time by 60%, taking the approval chasing off people’s desks entirely.
Speed is the obvious gain. The one that matters more is consistency, because work that runs automatically runs the same way every time, and that strips out the small errors that creep in when a person repeats a task a hundred times. Your team gets their hours back, and the data they hand on is cleaner for it.
The newest thing you can do with your data is hand it to an AI agent.
An agent is software that takes a request in plain English and acts on what it finds in your data. Build one in Copilot Studio, connect it to what you already hold in Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, and it can draft a proposal from your CRM records or pull a report together from scattered project notes without a person doing the legwork.
This is where organised data pays off twice. An agent is only as good as the data it can reach, so the businesses getting real value from AI tend to be the ones who sorted their data first.
We build custom agents like this in eight days through Agents in 8, working with the systems a business already runs on. We worked with WeChange.AI to build a proposal agent that now saves them 7-10 hours a week and has lifted their win rate by 20%+.
Every use above rests on one thing: your data being in a fit state to use. This is the step that gets skipped, and it’s usually why data projects stall.
In most organisations, data is scattered across systems that were never built to work together. Microsoft Fabric brings it into one place, so your reporting, forecasting, automation and AI all draw on the same trusted source instead of a dozen that disagree.
Get the foundation right first, and everything above gets faster and more reliable. Skip it, and you spend your time explaining why two reports show different numbers.
We did exactly this for a plant hire firm, unifying their data with Microsoft Fabric and Power Platform. It now saves them £97k a year.
This is why Bespoke treats AI, automation and analytics as one conversation. They run on the same foundation, and the businesses that get real value build that foundation first.
In fact, you shouldn’t try.
The organisations that get value from their data usually start with one problem worth solving. A report that eats a day every month. A forecast nobody trusts.
You don’t need a big budget or a rip-and-replace project to begin either. Most of this runs on Microsoft licences you’re probably already paying for, working alongside your current systems rather than replacing them.
The harder part is knowing which problem to start with and what it’ll actually take. That’s what a Triple A Assessment is for: a one-day engagement that looks across your AI, automation and analytics options and hands you a ranked list of where the value is and a clear first step.
If your data is doing less than it should, that’s the place to start.
In a business, you use it to make decisions and remove work. That means reporting on how you’re performing, forecasting what’s ahead, automating the manual handling and, increasingly, feeding it to AI agents that act on it. On its own data does nothing. It earns its place when it changes a decision or saves someone time.
The main uses fall into five groups: reporting and dashboards, forecasting and prediction, automating manual processes, powering AI agents and unifying scattered data into one reliable source. Most data projects are a version of one of these.
The same things larger ones can, at a smaller scale. One dashboard pulling sales and costs into a single view, or an automation that handles invoicing, can be built without a big team or budget. Start with one clear problem.
Pick one problem worth solving rather than launching a broad data programme. A Triple A Assessment is a one-day way to see where the value is across AI, automation and analytics and leave with a ranked first step.
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.
