How to Gain Support for Business Intelligence

The one thing we notice whenever we’re implementing business intelligence programs with our customers in Calgary, Edmonton, and western Canada is that high level support is crucial for long term success. If you want a business intelligence project to deliver value over the long run and truly achieve the necessary return on investment (ROI) then the first step is to have that executive support. But, if you don’t have it at the moment how do you get it? How do you get the buy-in necessary to allow for a BI program to get started, grow, and show success? Here are four steps to gain support for a BI project: 1) Show need (increase productivity, decrease sales cycles or production cycles) 2) Demonstrate (potential) value 3) Break out of status-quo (hard to do when everyone is extra busy – they’re covering two jobs… etc.) 4) Gain support. Show Need Show need – here’s where you likely don’t need any help. You can already see that it doesn’t make sense to spend a week of full time work each month building the same report that should be automated, or you see the time being wasted in searching for the best options for a customer. You know you could fix issues faster if you just had visibility into when problems were starting to build. You could reduce equipment downtime if you had real access to the sensor information before the equipment fails. You can improve revenue if you knew which customers to focus on. Etcetera, etcetera. There are many ways to gain value from data analysis and a BI program – you can see the problems every day. Start collecting these issues and documenting the details. This will be key to showing how much value you can gain by solving these problems. If that one person is spending 12 weeks in a year gathering the information for the one report that they put together manually each month you can show a dollar amount that will contribute to the return on the investment that we’ll discuss next. Demonstrate Value Demonstrate the potential value. Here is where you often need the results to prove that it’s worth investing in, but there are ways you can demonstrate the value of a BI project without putting all your budget up front. Watson Analytics is a great tool that is available with a free trial that allows you to upload your own data or a sample set and immediately see reports and gain insights without doing extensive preparation work. We’ve also done small proof of concepts for customers to show that it is possible to pull together the information needed to address the issues identified. This can be a simple demonstration of tools using a sample of your data or a small project taking 30-60 days to take real data and show real value with business intelligence tools. The type of data may predicate the method for demonstrating value but there are options that we’d be happy to discuss if this isn’t straightforward for you. Breaking out of Status Quo We see it every day – and completely understand it. You’re so busy doing your job that you don’t have time to take a step back and see if there is a better way. This isn’t just you – this is everyone in every organization. It’s an endless loop of trying to get everything done before the day is over and respond to the endless emails in your inbox. This is when it is critical to stop and spend five minutes asking if there is a better way. Schedule in this time either at the end of the day so you can start fresh the next day on a more productive foot or first thing in the morning before everyone is dropping in or sending emails that you have to respond to immediately. My favorite is the last five minutes of the day. Here’s where it’s important to take a moment and see what you can do the next day to be more productive but also to review those issues that you know can be dealt with in a better way. This is where you’ll gain clarity on the items from step # 1. Taking the time to see how you can build a more productive process, identify roadblocks, highlight areas of waste, and other processes for improvement. Recognizing the issue really is the first step in making real improvements. This is the first step for you to break out of the heads down, work hard, but running on the treadmill feeling. Change begins with you – is a new-age, feel good slogan, but is really true in that once you start making progress on these areas for improvement others will notice and jump on board. Gain Support Once you have made progress in the previous steps it becomes much easier to gain support with others within the organization. Take the time to show the documented need for improvements and to demonstrate the results of the trial programs or proof of concepts. Building support with other co-workers is one step in the right direction, showing the potential dollar value improvement is another step in the right direction. Executive level support is gained with both a dollar amount of projected return on investment but also a team of people with confidence in a new project. Building the right support from the start makes such a difference, not just in getting the initial budget approved but more importantly in getting the right system delivered to show a true Return on Investment throughout the life of the project. Developing the excitement and the vision for improvements is worth the effort once such a project kicks off. We’re always happy to set up a conversation and discuss these points: helping with examples to show the value, realizing the need and potential gains and talking through how we’ve seen support grow. We can also discuss the overall vision with examples of how value has been delivered with many business intelligence projects. Send us an email at info@bowriversolutions.com or call us at (587)-885-1090 for further information. We’re happy to meet with you at our downtown Calgary office or at your location in Calgary or western Canada. If you’ve successfully gained enterprise support for your Business Intelligence project let us know if we’ve missed anything in the above steps. We’re always happy to hear about your experiences.

Cognos Analytics Versus Watson Analytics

Two Products for Business Analytics

IBM now has two business analytics offerings that our customers in Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan and British Columbia have been using and evaluating. Cognos Analytics is the long standing product evolving from Cognos -> Cognos ReportNet -> Cognos Business Intelligence -> Cognos Analytics and now Watson Analytics – the new offering using cognitive analytics and natural language originating from Watson that competed on Jeopardy. With these two analytic products the question comes up – Which one do I need?

Cognos Analytics

Cognos Analytics has evolved significantly from its roots in Ottawa, Canada back in 1969. The main selling feature for years was their PowerPlay Cubes for quick top down analysis, and slicing and dicing data in so many ways. The offerings changed significantly over the years but became a more complete offering in 2008 when purchased by IBM and combined with the extensive research and development and other tools that IBM has had to offer. The core of Cognos Analytics is still that easy access to corporate information – but with so much more now. Cognos Analytics is moving more and more into business users self service access to information. With both Cognos Analytics and Watson Analytics IBM is reducing the technical skillset needed for more advanced analytics – empowering users as they progress in this direction. This has been discussed previously in our post on So You’re Not a Data Scientist… So What! Cognos Analytics is a truly complete business analytics offering for professional reports, dashboards, self service information access, emailed reports and more. This one tool provides the complete picture of where you are and where you need to go. This is the tool that allows users to make analytics part of their daily work routine with information at their fingertips and a reduced IT backlog. In addition, the sharable features of Cognos Analytics helps to build a community within the organization – with the all important single source of the truth.

Watson Analytics

Watson Analytics is the new kid in town when it comes to Business Analytics. However, this does not mean it’s lacking in power. On the contrary, Watson Analytics is a very powerful tool that has many benefits to adding to your toolkit. The primary strength is in the simplicity – this is the epitome of empowering end users and reducing the necessary technical skillset. There is no need at all for an IT background or a degree in Statistics in order to find the gold in endless columns of data and even unstructured data such as social media analytics. Using natural language it becomes very easy to ask questions and immediately see reports that address those questions with options to drill in or filter to more specific data or alternative views to answer similar questions. Watson Analytics allows for immediate visual understanding of information with key exception reporting. No longer are you searching through data for a vital piece of information – this information stands out immediately. Not only does a user not need to understand a SQL statement like

“Select name, location, age from table1 join table2 on table1.primarykey = table2.key where table2.lostTimeIncident > 2”

But that user doesn’t even have to drag and drop and create a report or design a report specification. A user can simply type in:

“Tell me about the lost time incidents”

Watson Analytics guides data exploration and by doing so a user can immediately see all of the lost time incidents and drill in to find any issues such as locations that are at higher risk, departments, etc. Watson Analytics – More Capabilities Watson Analytics can take things one step further with automated predictive analytics providing answers and new insights. Uncover patterns, correlations and key drivers in your data. Reveal unbiased insights – all without that highly technical data scientist skill set. Business users that truly understand their data will be empowered with new data discoveries. All of this with the ability to tell a powerful story through charts, dashboards and automated visual representations. Watson Analytics also makes data preparation very easy – it can be as easy as uploading a spreadsheet of data or connecting to a cloud data source – with an automatically produced quality report. Refinement can be completed on top of this – creating new groups, calculations or hierarchies. All in an easy to accomplish fashion – easier than Excel. Then immediate guided exploration is possible. One additional benefit of Watson Analytics is in Social Media Analytics. This provides a truly powerful and insightful view of your company or industry with insights about what people are saying including a sentiment analysis feature that quickly summarizes what people are saying to identify customer trends and consumer sentiment. Curious about Watson Analytics? We can help you get set up with their free trial! To get your Watson Analytics Free Trial email us at info@bowriversolutions.com

Watson Analytics Versus Cognos Analytics?

It’s great that IBM has these two products and they each have some very distinctive advantages. If you’re looking for business intelligence without a huge technical skillset you have options! So how do you decide which one you should use and why? First of all with Cognos and Watson Analytics it isn’t necessarily an either/or decision. These two products serve two distinct needs and can effectively build on one another. It doesn’t have to be a choice of one or the other. However, because there are distinct usages of each it helps to point out that Cognos Analytics excels at the operational reporting and providing easy access to accurate information, and Watson Analytics excels in the Data Discovery/Predictive Analytics/and Pattern Analysis area. Cognos Analytics tends to be more focused on the professional report side with easy viewing and sharing of information. Watson Analytics leans towards data discovery – showing you what you didn’t know to ask. When comparing Cognos Analytics and Watson Analytics what it really comes down to is if you’re looking for a traditional (but highly advanced!) business intelligence implementation with professional reports and a shared environment then Cognos Analytics is going to provide a next generation solution for your business. If you’re looking for new data discovery with a new way of analyzing your business including predictive analytics and social media analytics – then Watson Analytics is the answer. We can help you discover what is best for your specific needs with a custom needs assessment. Call us for a needs assessment or for your free trial of Watson Analytics (587)-885-1090 or email us at info@bowriversolutions.com. It really can be that easy to make better decisions, quickly, and more accurately… today.

So You’re Not a Data Scientist… So What!

You’re not a Data Scientist – You Don’t Need to Be! So you’re not a data scientist but you need more information to do your job. We can help. We have helped many customers just like you in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Saskatoon and Regina. Customers that have needed access to information and fast, needed to write a report without going to IT, or needed to make critical business decisions with up to date and accurate information. Even customers that had an idea to improve company performance but needed to show the numbers to prove it. This is what we live and breath…. bringing data together to show real answers, timely, and accurately. IBM Cognos Analytics We use IBM Cognos BI to set up systems for user self service. You no longer need to be a data scientist or an IT guru to get the answers you need. With IBM Cognos you can create your own report and have the answers at your fingertips.

You can also start with a dashboard to see your department and then drill into more detail. This helps you answer the questions you didn’t know to ask. Why is this area outperforming the other areas? Why is this manager underperforming? Then you can get to how you can help all areas increase their performance. If you know the data is available and you want access at your fingertips we can help. The original Business Intelligence offerings were great options that allowed for clicking and drilling down to discover more detailed information. These quickly hit limits with data volumes, performance, and availability. Years of waiting to provide easier access to business users and true self-service capabilities has paid off. There are options now that we can set up systems and have business users accessing self service reporting options within weeks of starting the project. This enables users to get answers without needing an IT background and without being a data scientist. You can now do so much more than VLookups in Excel. You can drag and drop and create your own report within minutes and re-run it in seconds or schedule it to be delivered to your inbox on a schedule that works for you. These options are so easy now we hardly think to celebrate them. But, if you’re still having to call over to the local expert to run a report for you, or you’re re-creating the same report each month, or worse you can’t get the answers you need… this can change and it doesn’t take a University degree to change it. IBM Watson Analytics Even better than this self service report writing capability is the cognitive analysis available now through IBM Watson Analytics. This takes natural language questions and automatically responds with data displayed suited to the question asked. This is not just a step ahead of easy self-service acces – this is a leap and bound ahead. Simply entering “tell me what my department looks like” results in several graphical displays with different ways of looking at departments. If you like what you see you can see more of the same or click to filter the display in more detail. All of this without extensive setup times or expensive software costs. This really is Advanced Analytics made Easy.

Visit: IBM Watson Analytics – Take a look and then call us today.

Find out how to use IBM Watson Analytics and see how easy it is to do your job and use Advanced Analytics without being a data scientist. Call us for a demo (587)-885-1090 or email us at info@bowriversolutions.com. It really can be that easy to make better decisions, quickly, and more accurately… today.

Saving You Time

Save Time! Since 2005 we have been helping our customers in Calgary, Saskatoon, Victoria and Edmonton save time in their daily work lives. No this isn’t a get organized quick scheme; although I think we would all love if there was a magic formula for saving time and getting more things done each day, this isn’t that magic fix! Instead this is the reality of finding ways to get the information you need to do your job – faster, easier, and more accurately. Success We often start working with our customers and hear statements like “this report used to take me a week to compile, now it’s available at the click of a button” or “my boss just came into my office and asked for the numbers on x location – I was able to pull this up in less than twenty minutes, he didn’t even leave my office before he had an answer, that used to take days to answer”. Or another favorite is when we are first introduced to a customer and they complain of a report that takes hours to run… when even 15 minutes to run the same report would be painful. When we show them how they can get the same information in seconds they are thrilled.

Business Analytics. Saving you time!

Self Service Data – Information at Your Fingertips We have used IBM Cognos Business Intelligence (BI) to pull together information in a format that makes self-service reporting and drillable dashboards a reality. IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced has been a great tool to allow users to access their data in a self-service manner; building and running their own reports. Often within weeks we can have systems in place (and growing) so business users can write their own reports and find the information that they need. We have spent years building data warehouses, reports, and dashboards for our Business Analytics customers. We are as thrilled as our customers when we hear how the systems we have set up are saving them time. We use IBM Cognos Framework Manager to build a framework of the company data that is easy to use for business users and pulls everything into one place for greater productivity. Once the system is built then we train users and help them to make the most of the system. We will often write reports as well using IBM Cognos Report Studio to allow for accurate, pixel perfect reports that can be run quickly by end users. The combination of pre-built reports with self-service access saves our customers time and allows them easy access to information they need. No longer are they trying to re-format their own report each month in Excel, or requesting a data set to be updated so they can manipulate it into another report. Self service access to save them time. Are you wasting time waiting for information? Give us a call at (587)-885-1090 or email us at info@bowriversolutions.com Let’s talk. We really can find ways to save you time and make your work day more productive!

Excel Not Cutting it Anymore?

Top-performing companies in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver are learning the benefits of business analytics and predictive analytics in managing their data. Let’s face it. Excel can be a pretty powerful tool but re-creating the same report each month is simply a waste of time. Pivot tables and vlookups can get us a long ways into understanding our data, but wouldn’t you like to spend that extra day each month finding better ways to make your business run more cost-effectively?

We often start working with our customers and hear statements like “this report used to take me a week to compile, now it’s available at the click of a button” or “my boss just came into my office and asked for the numbers on x location – I was able to pull this up in less than twenty minutes, he didn’t even leave my office before he had an answer, that used to take days to answer”. If you’re still working with Excel to create the reports that you want or answer the questions you’re being asked, now’s the time to see what else is out there. In business, time is definitely money, we can help you save time and money.

We help our customer implement IBM Cognos Business Intelligence and get these typical results in time-savings, often within weeks. These are customers that spent days each month re-creating the same month-end report and then were able to run a Cognos report at the click of a button. They could also open up Cognos Workspace Advanced and create their own report that could be saved and re-run any time they like. Whether you’re creating a month-end report, a dashboard or a powerpoint presentation – if you’re spending hours pulling together the data and then doing it again on a regular basis there is a better way. You can have that report at the click of a button next month.

Are you still spending days creating your Excel reports? Give us a call at (587)-885-1090 or email at info@bowriversolutions.com Let’s talk. It costs you nothing to look into the possibilities while the time and expense of maintaining the status quo can easily be eliminated.

Love coffee? Have one on us!

In working with companies to help them improve their financial performance, we’ve found that Controllers are often the ones who are experiencing the most challenges getting the information and reports they need. One of the main issues is not being able to access the right data they need to report on their company’s finances.

Excel is difficult when doing forecasting and planning, and trying to consolidate plans in excel is tedious and error prone

Companies’ financial system doesn’t allow for the deeper analysis needed to understand where money can be saved or profits increased. For example, looking at sales per region isn’t as effective as drilling down to cities and individual stores or locations

Producing accurate and timely reports for executives is labour intensive and it is difficult to access all the required information in the proper format

We’ve had great success in tackling these issues and ones like them. We are always open to sharing knowledge in this area and grabbing coffee with anyone interested in chatting about company accounting and finance. It’s great to meet new people and if we can’t help, we might know someone who can.

If you have 10 minutes, drop us a line and we’ll take you out for coffee.

Get in Touch! – info@bowriversolutions.com or call us at (587)-885-1090

Not located in Calgary? We can take the coffee date virtual – lets chat on the phone and we’ll send a Starbucks eGift Card your way to enjoy later.

Send us an email at info@bowriversolutions.com or call us at (587)-885-1090 for further information. We’re happy to meet with you at our Calgary office at 330 5th Avenue SW, Suite 1800 or at your location in Calgary or western Canada.