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January 2, 2009
The 5 Essential Web-based Reporting Tools
A lot of CIOs or CEOs who consider their first Web-based business intelligence (BI) purchase make the mistake of thinking that business intelligence is an all-or-nothing proposition. Buy everything the vendor says you need, or keep using Excel for another year. This is naturally a false dilemma.
With business intelligence solutions becoming increasingly commoditized and "modular" (get which components you need and leave out the rest), CIOs and CEOs have more choices now than ever.
What we call business intelligence is nothing but the efficient way to turn data into actionable items. See efficiently, understand efficiently, act efficiently--this is (or should be) the flow of BI. In theory, you can see, understand and act with nothing but a green-bar report, a calculator and a phone. But in practice, a firm that wants to be competitive needs to have tools that offer a much higher level of efficiency.
Here are the essential business intelligence tools that will make tangible difference even in the short run.
(BTW, LogiXML has an excellent white paper on the 12 essential tools in business intelligence--and it's free for download.)
1 - Web-based dashboard software. Having the metrics that count all in one Web screen accessible from anywhere is invaluable in today's business. However, the rule should be followed that, on an IT dashboard, decision-makers should have "the essentials, all the essentials and nothing but the essentials." An uncluttered dashboard that contains the most critical metrics is a shortcut to competitive success.
2 - Web-based ad-hoc reporting. In a smart company, no two employees have the same exact duties. Therefore, giving each employee the ability to create his own ad-hoc reports as reflected by their unique tasks becomes a great strength. There are two kinds of ad-hoc reporting capability that a firm can contemplate: ad-hoc reporting proper and ad-hoc-like capability in a managed reporting solution. With a good Web-based managed reporting solution, the second can give the end-user enough flexibility to conduct his own reporting and analysis without going all the way with a true ad-hoc reporting software.
3 - Actionable KPIs. This Web-based scorecarding feature may be part of a dashboard (or even an ad-hoc dashboard). But the ability to view critical thresholds and act on them at the click of a mouse is paramount. For instance, as you see that your top-selling SKU has dropped below a certain in-stock threshold, the application should offer you the possibility to place a reorder without leaving the screen. See, understand and act efficiently.
4 - Automatic report scheduling and alerts. While it's great to have the possibility to create and modify reports at will, it's even more effective when key reports are generated automatically on a scheduled basis. For example, your whole sales force should have a sales report prepared and emailed to them automatically every day. This will arm them with the necessary knowledge before they even make their first call. Alerts have similar benefits, but are even more pointed: I view them like a KPI that comes to you when action is needed. When a threshold is crossed, you are proactively alerted by the application, so that you minimize the chances of missing it.
5 - Advanced visualization tools. Humans are visual animals. Yes, we can analyze numbers as a matter of course, but there's nothing more impactful than a simple color-coded visualization tool that informs you of certain aspects of your business. Features like Web-based heat maps, animated charts and graphs, geographic maps--all with drill-down and drill-through capability--are efficient means of both understanding your data and persuading colleagues and clients.
If I was a small or medium-sized business entrepreneur, these are the essentials with which I would arm my company. Sure, there are lots more features that are both technologically "sexy" and useful, but the steepest part of the return curve ends--in my opinion--with these five tools. As a last caveat, make sure that whatever Web-based reporting, analysis and dashboard application you get is also easy to connect, easy to build and use, since in today's economy, drawn-out, complicated projects are especially dangerous and costly.
Posted by Hound of the BI-skervilles at January 2, 2009 9:15 AM
