All Professional Services firms understand the importance of data. What can set you apart is the insights you gain by using the right business intelligence software.
Consolidating business-wide data is still perhaps the easier part for a Professional Services firm. However, when you spend too much time organizing the data, from different sources, analyzing it, and then drawing inferences – that is a loss of crucial employee-hours. This becomes an even bigger problem when you are unable to take the right decisions due to human errors in data, or multiple versions of truth, or simply because you cannot “visualize” what the data is trying to convey.
That is where business intelligence software comes into the picture.
Why do you need business intelligence?
Business intelligence used to be the domain of math wizards and data experts. Times have changed. Thanks to technology, anybody can leverage the power of business intelligence, gain better understanding of what the data is saying, and make more informed decisions. All this without needing to rely on anyone else.
Why is this important? This decentralized approach equips decision makers with the tools they need to gain real time insights to take data-driven decisions and become better leaders.
What problems do business intelligence tools help solve?
Modern business intelligence software come with a range of functionalities that help solve many problems. Some of the benefits you can gain with such tools include:
- Reducing time, effort, and error rate by automatically sourcing data from different systems and presenting a consolidated view
- Real time access to data and analysis without any dependencies
- Advanced features like predictive analytics to forecast events and prepare for them
- Better insights with powerful data visualization features
- Data-driven decisions to boost efficiencies across functions and become more profitable
Which tool is best for business intelligence?
Microsoft Power BI is a popular choice for many businesses due to its robust functionality, ease of use, and ability to connect data from multiple sources.
A salient feature of a modern business intelligence tool is its ability to explain past data AND make forecasts based on past trends. Using advanced technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft Power BI can predict the likelihood of certain events by analyzing your past data. For instance, if you know which of your clients is going to be late on payments in the next quarter, you can prepare by initiating a more active follow-up process and at the same time prepare for such an eventuality and manage your cashflows more efficiently.
A big advantage of choosing a Microsoft solution is that it connects seamlessly to other applications and tools in the Microsoft ecosystem and connects to your existing third-party systems, including IoT devices. Finance professionals, for example, would be interested in Power BI connecting to their data stored in Excel.
Since most businesses are using a hybrid or a fully remote model of working, it is important to ensure access to data from anywhere and any device. Microsoft Power BI has a browser-based login option that caters to this need to connect and work from anywhere while also ensuring robust security.
Whether you are hosting your data on on-premise infrastructure or already on the cloud, Power BI will be able to cater to all your business intelligence requirements. It is also a good option if you are preparing your systems to move to the cloud, in which case Power BI will continue to serve your data analysis needs through the journey and help make that transition easier.
sa.global helps you do more with business intelligence
Choosing a business intelligence software is not enough. You also need a good implementation partner who understands your unique business needs, configures the solution to match those needs, and offers advice to make your business future-ready.
sa.global has been helping clients for over three decades and is 100% Microsoft focused. Why is this important? You would want to work with a partner with an in-depth knowledge of the systems to offer expert advice when needed. So, you don’t have to go through the same challenges others have gone through and leverage the industry best practices that have been refined over many years.
Interested in learning more about what the right business intelligence software can do for your business? Talk to us and our consultants explain the options available to you in a no-obligation call.
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