Because life happens in real-time Why dashboards are changing the shape of Business Intelligence Even if just one of the three statements below applies to your business, you ll be looking for a Business Intelligence (BI) tool to help you unlock your data potential. But which tool should you choose? Many business decisions are based on inaccurate or incomplete data Businesses are experiencing exponential data growth Too much information is stored in individual systems, effectively locking data into silos. Dashboard software can transform your decision making by reporting on your key business drivers in real time. The shape of things to come In the current economic climate, it s more important than ever that businesses work with up-to-date information in order to remain competitive. There is a profound need for live tracking and analysis of business challenges and processes. After all, having an up-to-date picture of what drives your business profitability helps you make decisions which increase efficiency and keep your business agile and proactive. To date this information has come from a disparate set of software packages (accounting, HR and payroll, CRM, EPOS, ecommerce solutions etc.). While the information within each of these systems is valid, it doesn t necessarily extend across the whole organisational structure and is therefore not accessible to all staff in all departments at any one time. Getting a holistic, consistent view of each area of the business can often be difficult if not impossible. For example, Sales need information held in Finance but have no access to the ERP/accounting system; Operations need information held in Sales, but have no access to the CRM system. Software vendors traditionally offer products that pull information from supplier specific databases, making a true top-down view of the business unachievable. While you can see how each area is performing, it s not possible to see how one is impacting on the other. Consequently, businesses have been forced to create their own method for collecting and consolidating data, resulting in numerous versions of the truth being held in separate, differently formatted spreadsheets across the organisation. This only comes to light when data is pulled from several systems, such as looking at Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This relies on data from more than one system, but pulling the data and centralising it into one spreadsheet can never provide the accurate, real-time reporting required.
For example, when marketing run a promotion, you need to know the products that are selling fast, the stock that is running low and the manufacturing forecasts. Having instant access to this information is the key to maximising your return from the campaign. What are our best-selling products? Can we change our manufacturing schedule to support the bestselling lines? Should we stop the campaign before stocks run out? Is it seasonal? What are the resources needed to support the sales? What are the resources required for maintenance and servicing? What matters to you, doesn t matter to me Every business houses several different roles and responsibilities. It s therefore natural that what matters to one person may not necessarily matter to someone else. So while the business as a whole must maintain a complete view of its activities, it s important that users can see all data relevant to their own roles. Moreover, now we re no longer tied to one desk or even one office that information needs to be accessible (subject to permissions/security) by anyone, at any time, and from anywhere. The changing face of BI (Business Intelligence) In the business world, there is now a need for comprehensive real-time information, delivered 24/7. Traditionally BI has been dominated by large enterprise software companies and the cost of implementation and maintenance has understandably led many growing organisations to believe that BI is just not for them. However, the BI market is changing fast as smaller and more flexible independent software companies are having an impact on the market space. This new breed of software providers are now being recognised as a viable standalone alternative. One such solution is the dashboard. Dashboard is an interactive BI tool that connects to any or all of a business s software applications to give a visually striking view of their business information. What s more, it s possible to drill down through the graphs all the way to the raw data. It enables the tracking of KPIs, as well as the monitoring of individual, team, and corporate goals in real time. Towards transparency It s not just the BI vendors that have changed the end users have changed too. Typically, BI was considered a need to know information tool aimed at decision-makers; the distribution of management information usually confined to specific levels of management and only cascaded once fully vetted, often in abbreviated format. Employers are fast waking up to the fact that money is not the main force behind job satisfaction and that instead recognition and acknowledgement of one s contribution is worth more. Providing people with genuine insight into how they are performing, recognising their efforts and encouraging peer comparison can contribute hugely to an employee s level of engagement and therefore efficiency.
Empowering the front line through self-service BI Dashboards give end users a greater say in how they view and explore business data relevant to their job roles. So there are clearly very important motivational factors derived from allowing employees to feel more in control of their personal performance. Companies are now working with increasingly disparate organisational structures including: working from home, access to information out of hours and extending access to other business stakeholders (such as resellers or agents). The need for accurate, live, comprehensive information is growing all the time. Breaking away from the desktop Historically, information has been limited to viewing static charts on screen or opening email attachments. The problem is that by the time information is pulled, formatted and sent it s already stale. It is firstly providing a retrospective view of the business, and secondly affording no way to drill down into the underlying data for full investigation. Dashboard products provide accurate, relevant information on demand. It s now possible to see datasets from all your connected databases on any device, from anywhere, at any time. Like the Dashboard product itself, the interface for the mobile user is simple, allowing fast navigation to relevant metrics; mouse clicks are replaced by taps while charts and navigation paths are re-sized and re-worked to fit the screen size of the mobile/tablet. The key features stay the same, such as sending charts as email messages, viewing KPI alerts with trend indicators, and drill down to detailed source information. Why use mobile Dashboards? Fast: connects to your existing server without additional downloads Nothing new to learn: view the same charts/kpis as through the regular Dashboard Easy to maintain: no need to create new security restrictions follows your existing settings Easy viewing: end users can view charts by landscape/portrait views using rotate facility
Using your smart phone or tablet, you can view the KPIs by clicking on the glance item What makes self-service BI a success? Empower & motivate: Dashboards makes it easy for businesses to change the out-dated top-down approach to management. Pull information from each level of the decision-making process. User involvement: allow staff to develop the look and feel, choose chart types and decide on the most relevant drill paths to suit them. Listen to concerns: transparency shouldn t be confused with big brother. Address fears openly and reinforce how Dashboard recognises positive achievement. Promote business partners: include charts that recognise the input of dealers and resellers and other business partners who influence the overall business. Support & promote the BI initiative: lead by example and encourage people show that management are committed to the use of the solution. Appointing designated champions can help. Four reasons to use self-service BI 1. Provide visibility and real-time tracking of business goals, allowing you to spot where you can boost productivity and efficiency - Stakeholders decide which goals are most important and share them with the wider business. Goals can be published (e.g. via your intranet) allowing end users to familiarise themselves with real-time company performance. RSS feeds can be set up to keep people up-to-date with company news, effectively eliminating inbox-clogging updates.
2. Empower managers to track their KPIs and those of their employees, and act on trends immediately - It s important to review performance as it happens, not days even weeks after the event. Delays can mean that underlying issues have already had an impact and the chance to reward performance has been and gone too. Dashboard eliminates the retrospective view of business performance, revealing changing situations as they unfold putting a stop to damaging trends and allowing you to reward staff at the time they deserve. 3. Motivate staff by allowing them to explore data that is relevant to their job role and performance - Dashboard software provides a framework for team working, so that your employees can see how and where they play a part in achieving business goals. For example, teams can be allocated specific KPIs (sales of a specific product, marketing leads etc.) and their progress monitored via a KPI tree. Nodes within the tree are configurable to your chosen structure, representing employees, teams, departments and more. For individual employees, it shows how team members fit into their organisational structure, let s them monitor their own personal performance against specified targets and ultimately helps them track and review how they can contribute to their full potential. 4. Stay in touch with KPIs: automatic alerts and 24/7 access - Dashboard software is specifically designed for today s mobile workforce, allowing people to react to and act on KPIs wherever they are. Moreover, the use of alerts means that users don t even have to keep an eye on their Dashboard charts; information can be delivered on a need-to-know basis, allowing employees to focus on the issues that matter rather than a full scale overview of every challenge set. Do I really need BI? Answering yes to any of the questions on the list below means your organisation would undoubtedly benefit from an Interactive Dashboard solution. For you I have to re-format my reports each time I would like a different view I get frustrated because my reports are always out of date, or missing information Viewing KPIs for each area of my operations is a challenge Compiling reports is slow it can take a long time to collate data Reports show me too much data it s hard to find critical information Reports give me too little information I can t drill down to underlying data I frequently need to refer to KPIs when I m out of the office For your employees Staff rely on others to provide management information for them Employees spend a lot of time running manual routines Staff are unable to see how their input contributes to overall business performance Staff feel that they are without influence and lack motivation
Your operations Each department/area of the business holds its information separately Data used to create reports originates from different sources, so there s no consistent view of the truth My business would like to understand how it can increase employee motivation and retention Benefits of investing in Dashboard software Quick to implement Data is viewed in real time Uses data you already hold Web-based for fast rollout and lower cost of ownership Provides reporting on self-service basis Scalable and caters for designated secure user access according to role Can be accessed from anywhere at any time What to look out for Fully configurable users can see what they want to see, without incurring extra charges from the software vendor Great look & feel intuitive and easy to use with an extensive range of standard graphs and charts with the ability to drill down to raw data. Plus, you should easily be able to brand it in your company style sheet Accessibility access via web or mobile device, anytime and anywhere Easy to deploy ability to publish charts to a wider audience (e.g.over the internet/intranet or on a public screen) Database agnostic allows combination data from different source formats (SQL Server, Oracle, mysql, DB2, PostgreSQL, Ingres, Ingres Vectorwise amongst others) Scalability easy to add additional server instances as required Extensibility no limit to the number of data sources you can draw from/link to Platform and browser agnostic (e.g. Mac/PC/Linux and any browser on each of these platforms) Exports easily ability to extract data from the Dashboard for further analysis (e.g. email reports and copy data into Excel) Mobile access view charts on the move, from any device, email charts to other users Training software provider should offer free training to super users for fast and easy rollout Linked to the rest of the business ability to link from charts back to your existing applications or to integrate your own application with the Dashboard In summary After the data surge of recent years, too much crucial business information is stored in disparate, separately formatted places. This means that decisions are based on inaccurate, incomplete information. In order to overcome these issues, businesses need a live view of what s happening within the area of their operations and also the ability to provide individual users with tailored views of the same.
Thankfully, BI products are now within reach of all businesses. Moreover, by redefining traditional organisational structures and taking advantage of new technologies such as mobile working, these software vendors have created products which promote openness and transparency throughout the entire organisation. Dashboards help businesses identify where productivity can be increased and efficiency saving can be found, providing businesses with a real opportunity to steal a march over their competitors. Want to see dashboards in action? Call panintelligence on Tel: +44 (0)113 251 3455 to arrange a demonstration. Who we are panintelligence is a trading style of pancredit systems ltd. Founded in 1988, pancredit is a UK based software company that specialises in the development and marketing of software products and related services to lenders and their intermediaries. pancredit was the first company to launch an integrated lending solution based on a relational database (1990), was an early adopter of XML (1999), has had a fully web service enabled product set since 2005 and has several years of experience of Rich Internet Application development. We place strong emphasis on quality and were the first technology company in the UK to achieve ISO 9001:2008, ISO 27001 and FAST Platinum accreditations, alongside a certified integrated Quality and Security Management System. The Dashboard was originally developed as a new module for pancredit s core loan administration software, although it quickly became apparent that the benefits of the technology could be adopted and applied across any application. The level of interest and uptake from outside of pancredit s traditional markets has given rise to the need for its own identity and website, hence panintelligence was born. The panintelligence team operates as a separate business intelligence arm within pancredit, although they benefit from pancredit s infrastructure and the financial backing of Shackleton Ventures who specialise in technology markets. Further information We hope that you ve found this paper of interest. For more information about panintelligence dashboard software visit www.panintelligence.com panintelligence pancredit House 12 Moorfield Close Yeadon Leeds LS19 7YA Telephone: +44 (0)113 251 3455 Email: dashboard@panintelligence.com