Do More In Less Time Part 6
•
0 gefällt mir•196 views
“Do More In Less Time Part 6” discusses how real life business “Vectorform” tackled the issue of data organization by using Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 R2 database software. Also discussed is how the use of spreadsheets can give better visual examples and how centralizing data offers better reports.
Empfohlen
Weitere ähnliche Inhalte
Kürzlich hochgeladen
Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)
Empfohlen
Empfohlen (20)
Do More In Less Time Part 6
- 1. Do More in Less Time Boosting Everyday Productivity Part 6
- 2. Make Smarter Decisions by Quickly Getting Key Insights into Your Business Time wasted … “One of the biggest benefits of SQL Server® Their answer 2008 R2 is time savings for me and for other staff members.” Pulling data and creating reports Data “Now that we can use data from SQL Server consolidation 2008 R2 to substantiate our decisions, their Securing and central reports for accuracy increases exponentially.” reporting distribution – Charles Spadafore, Director of Operations, Vectorform 100 employees Digital experience studio
- 3. Make Smarter Decisions by Quickly Getting Key Insights into Your Business How easy is it for you to analyze Do you have a comprehensive view of your data? your data? Visualization tools Central platform Automatic data updates Custom automated reports Custom on-demand reports
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Timing: 3 minutesGoal: Provide a real customer example of lost productivity caused by time-consuming processes in compiling and analyzing data.Key messages:Common problem: Gathering, reconciling, and analyzing data to get insight into the business. In this example, the manual process of collecting information, building reports, and dealing with security issues was taking too much time. Vectorform addressed the problem by using modern database and spreadsheet software to consolidate business intelligence data, create reports, and enable powerful analysis by all users.Script: The last area that our customers talk to us about where they’re looking for help to do more in less time is in dealing with their data. More specifically, they want to make it easier to use the data that they’re collecting to get key insights into their businesses to help them make better, more informed decisions. It’s not that there is a shortage of data. In fact, it’s the opposite: there’s a LOT of data, and too often that data is spread out across several systems, making it hard to get a handle on. It’s not uncommon for business owners to tell me that they spend so much time manually compiling information, sorting it, and trying to make sense of it that it really slows down how quickly they can respond to new opportunities or identify small issues before they become big problems. For lots of small businesses, the only option is to make business decisions with their gut, which of course is what happens a lot of the time. Vectorform provides a great example of the struggle to get insight from data. Vectorform is a digital experience studio. It creates cutting-edge interactive solutions for the web, mobile devices, gaming consoles, and multitouch platforms, among others. It’s a small business with just a hundred employees, but those employees are spread out globally—some in India, some in Germany, and some in the United States. The company understands the importance of data to help them make smart business decisions. Their issue, however, was getting the right information, to the right people, with the right security. Their data is spread across multiple separate sources: time-tracking applications, internally built allocations tools, billing pipelines, and human resource databases. This made building reports tedious and cumbersome. For example, in some cases their director of operations would create reports from separate applications, then cut and paste numbers from PDF documents, create filters, manage tables, and then finally generate a chart with the information he needed. They were also struggling with data inconsistencies from having so much data dependent on spreadsheets. Even though they would try to have just one read-only copy stored in a single place on a secure network, they’d still end up with inconsistencies, and only one person could work with the data at a time—if someone wanted to update a spreadsheet that someone else was working in, he or she would have to get the other person to close it first.All of that changed when Vectorform started using Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 R2 database software to pull together data from its disparate systems and Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel technology to generate reports based on this data. Vectorform’s employees now all work with the same data, rather than copies of spreadsheets that quickly become outdated. The system lets employees run their own automated reports, so they don’t have to send a request to the director of operations and then wait around for a response—which in the past could take a while given the different time zones they work in. In report production time alone, the company is saving about 25 percent. The new system also gives users powerful visual tools to filter and analyze the data from within their familiar spreadsheet software. Since the system integrates with the Microsoft Active Directory® directory service, they can control who has access to what, helping address the security hassles they used to battle when they wanted to share confidential information with specific people. And since the company is made up of highly creative people, they appreciate the rich, sophisticated charts and graphics that they can create with the new system.At Vectorform, all of this adds up to better, more accurate business decisions. For example, they’re doing a better job of allocating resources, because they know what resources are free at what time, who’s double-booked, and who can take on more work. The tools are helping them streamline their project acceptance and hiring processes, which will ultimately directly impact the company’s future performance.http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise/Vectorform/Digital-Experience-Studio-Uses-Business-Intelligence-to-Make-Data-Driven-Decisions/4000007568
- Timing: 4 minutesGoal: Introduce how technology can make it easier to get insight into a business to support better decision making.Key messages:Two ways technology can help people get insights into the business more easily for better decision making include:Using spreadsheets for analysis: better visualization tools to help spot trends more easily, plus automatic data updating.Using a centralized data platform to pull data together and make it easier to get reports as needed (automated and on demand).Script: Have you ever found yourself making a decision based on your gut instinct, simply because you didn’t have time to track down the information to help you or you didn’t have the right tools to get insight from your data? If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Business intelligence is one of the most common things my customers talk to me about, and according to Forrester Research, business intelligence software is the fastest-growing software market that small and midsize businesses are investing in. It seems there are two problems here: one is extracting meaning from data, and the other is bringing data together when it’s spread across several different systems. Let’s look at some tools that can help you with each problem.Starting with analyzing data, I’m assuming we’ve all had some experience with spreadsheets and how they can help you compile and sort data. However, what you may not have seen are some of the powerful visualization tools that can save you from wading through hundreds of cells of numbers trying to spot trends. There are a couple of features that I’d like to highlight in Excel 2010 that can really help you bring your numbers to life and instantly see patterns, without a lot of manual work. The first is sparklines, which are miniature single-cell charts that reveal patterns in large sets of data. They basically show you the big picture in a single cell. For example, you could use sparklines to show how your sales are trending over a range of different categories, products, or services over a given period of time. Just think about how long it would take to manually build the equivalent with line charts. Another handy visualization feature is conditional formatting, which lets you automatically apply formatting (such as different colors, icons, and data bars) to make the numbers more meaningful at a glance. And if you’re dealing with a lot of data in a PivotTable or PivotChart, you can use the slicer functionality to quickly filter the information to get right to the data you need; this feature essentially lets you slice-and-dice the data in a highly visual way. Of course, the results of your analysis will only be valuable if you’re confident that the data is up to date. If you’re pulling data into your spreadsheet from another source—for example, your customer relationship management (CRM) system—you can set your spreadsheet to automatically update from that source, helping remove some of your worry about inaccurate information and saving you time from updating the data manually.What if your data is spread out over several different systems? You might have some in your CRM system, some in your financial management system, some captured in disparate spreadsheets. Gathering data can be extremely time consuming. This is where having a central platform can be really helpful. As you saw with the Vectorform example, SQL Server 2008 R2 can help you get a single, consistent, complete view of your business by pulling together data from your different business applications and other data sources. You can then use the built-in reporting tools to create custom reports that give you the exact answers you’re looking for. You could set up some automated reports that provide regular updates to share across your business, and then run on-demand reports whenever you need to check in on important financial and business performance metrics. “The State of SMB Software and Emerging Trends: 2010,” Forrester Research, Inc., February 12, 2010, http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/state_of_smb_software_and_emerging_trends/q/id/55803/t/2