Smeebi's CEO Rob Connell introduces online business analytics for small business owners and their accountants at the Business Show and Accountex, ExCel, London, on June 6th & 7th 2013, Through Smeebi's Cloud based approached we can democratize BI,

1. By
Rob
Connell
CEO
of
Smeebi
Why and how to use
Business Intelligence
Monday, June 17, 13

2. Objectives for today:
Get an understanding of BI and the terms - but first of all, lets
establish do you need BI?
What business problems do you have that can’t be easily solved,
identifiable technical and business pain points?
Most companies fail due to poor financial management, perhaps
cash flow, uncontrolled growth, lack of access to funds?
So let’s see if BI can help and how? Remember a bad plan is
better than no plan!
Monday, June 17, 13

3. Agenda:
Monday, June 17, 13

4. BI defined
- break
through the
hype
5
mins
Agenda:
Monday, June 17, 13

5. BI defined
- break
through the
hype
5
mins
Democratizing
BI - effective
solutions
demanded by any
sized business
10
mins
Agenda:
Monday, June 17, 13

6. BI defined
- break
through the
hype
5
mins
Democratizing
BI - effective
solutions
demanded by any
sized business
10
mins
Practical application
of BI for an SME with use of
Financial Management KPIs
10
mins
Agenda:
Monday, June 17, 13

7. BI defined
- break
through the
hype
5
mins
Democratizing
BI - effective
solutions
demanded by any
sized business
10
mins
Practical application
of BI for an SME with use of
Financial Management KPIs
10
mins
Demonstration
of Smeebi
- cloud based BI
5
mins
Agenda:
Monday, June 17, 13

8. BI defined - break through the hype
Monday, June 17, 13

9. What’s all the hype on BI about?
Business Intelligence?
Business Analytics?
CPM /BPM Performance Management?
Data Visualization?
Big Data?
Mobile BI?
BI is simply about making sure this data is accurate and gets
into the rights hands in a timely manner.
Smeebi demonstrates it doesn’t have to
be complicated for the business user...
Monday, June 17, 13

10. Monday, June 17, 13

11. Monday, June 17, 13

12. Data
Monday, June 17, 13

13. Data
Monday, June 17, 13

14. Management
Report
Analysis,
comments & actions
Budgets & Scenarios
Dashboard
Data
Monday, June 17, 13

15. Current trends in BI..
Self service business intelligence or selling business function managers
will help grow the industry to a 14 billion dollar market.
Moving away from large data warehouse solutions and scheduled static
tabular reports and more about what you want when you want it,
available where you want it online:
Data Visualization Integration 33% to 69%
Dashboard adoption 58% to 91%
Mobile BI integration 9% to 48%
Monday, June 17, 13

16. Some more background on BI..
Another popular term is Business Performance Management (BPM) or Corporate
Performance Management (CPM) emerged from tools like the Balanced Scorecard
(introduced in 1992) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Initially collecting and reporting a small number of ‘balanced’ KPIs to manage
and monitor strategy execution.
Ever-increasing amounts of data and innovations with predictive analytics,
big data analytics and interactive performance reports streamed to our
mobile devices with up-to-date data visualizations.
This drives fact-based decision-making (both operationally and strategically)
and generates truly powerful competitive advantages.
Strategically it is effective but not always cascading down to an operational
level. Something smaller organisations should be in a better position to do.
Monday, June 17, 13

17. What are the most popular and effective tools
According to “20 Years of Measuring and Managing Business Performance From KPIs
and Dashboards to Performance Analytics and Big Data”
Number 1 is Key Performance Indicators - over two-thirds.
In second place is performance appraisals (60%)
Over 50% use mission and vision statements, to provide organizations with a common
purpose and direction.
The fourth most popular management tool – with just over half of all companies – are
management dashboards which bring together performance information (often in
graphs, charts and traffic lights) in a concise display so that performance levels are
easier to communicate and understand.
Other popular tools were benchmarking (41%), Balanced Score Card (28%) and rolling
forecasting (33%).
Monday, June 17, 13

18. What is being measured?
Financial performance is still the most measured aspect of any business, almost
100 percent of companies (87% of organisations if government included).
Almost 100% of companies measure financial performance.
2nd is operational performance (75%)
Customer (69%)
Employees (68%)
Sales and marketing (53%).
Lower numbers of companies also measure aspects of IT performance, culture and leadership,
social responsibility and environmental performance, as well as supply-chain performance.
Without the strategic direction it is harder to set targets
for KPIs, assess individual performance and find the right
benchmarks.
Monday, June 17, 13

19. Practical application of BI for an SME
with use of Financial Management KPIs
Monday, June 17, 13

20. Practical application for a small business
A good starting point:
The Financial Management Report & KPI’s
Too many business owners spend hours pouring over multiple
spreadsheets, P&L reports and calculations with little end
product.
Whilst there are many different aspects to this problem, one
issue we will look at in detail is the use of Key Performance
Indicators.
Monday, June 17, 13

21. Why do businesses need KPIs and real-time analysis?
The pressures on small businesses have never been greater.
7 out of 10 new employers survive at least two years and 51 % survive at
least five years. The key reason they give for failure is mismanagement.
“Over the years Ten Forward Finance have had many clients approach us
for assistance with a failing business. In truth the majority of the issues
they experience turn out to be due to poor financial management.
However , we also see another worrying trend; the lack of easy to
understand ‘Real-Time’ information”
Nathan Balakrishnan TFF, Certified Chartered Accountants
Monday, June 17, 13

22. KPI Definition:
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be
defined as measures that provide managers
with the most important performance
information to enable them to understand
the performance level of the organisation.
KPIs should clearly link to the strategic
objectives of the organisation and therefore
help monitor the execution of the business
strategy.
Education
The act of measuring KPI promotes an atmosphere
of learning in an organization and fosters critical
conversations. These discussions educate all
personnel involved.
Vital Information
KPIs provide small business owners with an immediate snapshot of the overall
performance of their business. These important KPIs provide vital decision-making
information.
The Financial Management Report & KPI’s
Monday, June 17, 13

23. KPIs driving smart activity
KPIs have a certain level of importance in an organization, but only if the KPI
leads to actionable steps to achieve a goal.
The company must convert the measured, quantified data into actionable items
to meet its goal.
Here are some examples of the type of KPI’s that you may find useful:
Improvement in Profitability
Improvement in Revenue growth
Improvement in net-new customers gained
Improvement in customer satisfaction
Monday, June 17, 13

24. What do you want from your business?
Are you just starting out, have you been running your business for a
few years?
Are you looking to sell?
Would you like more free time?
Do you want to generate enough free cash so you can be mortgage
free in 3 years?
Popular KPI’s:
Debtor Days
P&L after tax
Gross Margin
Revenue
Current Ratio
Monday, June 17, 13

25. Growth Company Ltd - examples of financial ratios
What is Current Ratio?
A liquidity ratio that measures a company's ability to
pay short-term obligations. Also known as 'liquidity
ratio', 'cash asset ratio' and 'cash ratio'. The Current
Ratio formula is Current Ratio = (current assets /
current liabilities). Typically a ratio of between 1.5
and 3 indicates a healthy business at least for the
short term.
Issue: Current Ratio Declining, bank set a target.
We all know how hard it is to get any sort
of lending
Monday, June 17, 13

26. Solution:
Employ a credit controller and task them
to reduce debtor days.
Issue: Cash at Bank
Bank Balance and Debtor Days
Monday, June 17, 13

27. So how can Smeebi help Growth Company Ltd?
We’ve identified some clear issues and some targets , and we can now pro-
actively use Smeebi to track KPI’s…. Smeebi can help business owners to
analyse their finances in a way that is productive, practical and easy
Budgets for next quarters and
next year
What are the KPI’S for the next
quarters?
Need to improve on Debtor days;
Target of 45.
Improve Gross Margin to 35%
Monitor Current Ratio – min 3
Increase reserves by X.
Monday, June 17, 13

28. KPIs Conclusion
We’ve been able to see that KPI’s are important. As well as historical
analysis Smeebi also has a neat budget tool that allows planning to
see impact on KPIs.
Here are the key messages:
Revenue Your critical income from
sales.
Debtor Days How this impacts cash
flow.
Profit/Loss Retained earnings for
dividends and reinvesting.
Acid Test &
Current Ratio
Will you meet your
obligations?
Gross Margin How’s your cost control
and pricing?
Keep it Simple – 3 or 4 KPI’S
Be clear about end goals/objectives
Set attainable and realistic Goals
Ensure they can be accurately measured
Set aside regular time to analyse
Examples of KPI’s to monitor and react to:
Monday, June 17, 13

29. Democratizing BI - effective solutions
demanded by any sized business
Monday, June 17, 13

30. Recap - What is Business Intelligence?
It is performance management - remember technology is just
there to serve.
Insight from Smeebi’s parent OlapCon:
“Makes strategies measurable by developing innovative
measuring, reporting and planning solutions. More
accurate forecasts, fact based decisions and get
insights for developing business.”
Mika Hurskainen, Chairman of OlapCon, IBM Premier Partner
Monday, June 17, 13

31. Plan & Forecast
Report & Analyse Measure & Monitor
Business Performance Management
Monday, June 17, 13

32. Impactoncompetitiveness
Operational - Strategic
Automating manual work,
delivering information
effectively
For instance, improvements
over spreadsheet manual
entry & calculations and
manual report creation
Automated reports - time savings and accuracy
Monday, June 17, 13

33. Monday, June 17, 13

34. Impactoncompetitiveness
Operational - Strategic
Solutions for strategy
implementation
Balance scorecard or
‘strategy map’ with KPI
measures for actual vs
target etc. and ability to
drill down to detail
Measuring against strategy including KPIs
Monday, June 17, 13

35. Monday, June 17, 13

36. Impacton
competitiveness
Operational - Strategic
Streamlining processes
Typically using OLAP Cube a
powerful method for
multidimensional analysis,
together with ad hoc
reporting.
Ad hoc reporting & multi-dimensional analysis
Monday, June 17, 13

37. Monday, June 17, 13

38. Impactoncompetitiveness
Operational - Strategic
Planning & Predictive Analytics,
forecasts and budgets presented in a
Dashboard overview with one ‘ multi
page’ slide show report with all
metrics and comments and trends
Smeebi also use a simple budget tool
for ‘what if’ analysis or scenario
planning, uses existing data to help get
started.
Planning and forecasting for the future:
Monday, June 17, 13

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41. Monday, June 17, 13

42. Demonstration of Smeebi - cloud based BI
Monday, June 17, 13

43. Set up a streamlined online office
Cloud based solutions have removed the barriers to IT:
Perhaps you switched to an on-line accounting package? Together with the new breed
of add-ons, all cloud based and therefore usually free to try and cheap to keep!
Accounting data integrated in minutes with Smeebi for reporting, analysis, budget
planning and ongoing monitoring that you are on strategy and making good timely
operational decisions.
There are other add-on tools that will integrate to help with other small business pain
points, such as CRM (Smeebi are working on adding other dimensions such as sales by
product, customer, location)
Monday, June 17, 13

44. Set up a streamlined online office
Cloud based solutions have removed the barriers to IT:
Perhaps you switched to an on-line accounting package? Together with the new breed
of add-ons, all cloud based and therefore usually free to try and cheap to keep!
Accounting data integrated in minutes with Smeebi for reporting, analysis, budget
planning and ongoing monitoring that you are on strategy and making good timely
operational decisions.
There are other add-on tools that will integrate to help with other small business pain
points, such as CRM (Smeebi are working on adding other dimensions such as sales by
product, customer, location)
Cloud Accounting + Cloud Email + Cloud
Storage (receipts & files) + Cloud CRM + Cloud
Payroll + Cloud BI
Monday, June 17, 13

45. company & link to your accounts
1.Sign
up,
create
company
&
link
to
accounts
2.
View
instant
financial
dashboard
with
your
KPIs
3.
Analyse
details,
drill
down.
comment
&
create
reports
4.
Create
a
budget
and
plan
mulGple
scenarios
5.
Refresh
data
to
measure
&
monitor
in
personalised
overview
&
share
Monday, June 17, 13

46. Try Smeebi for FREE!
Come to stand 350 for
a demo and sign up for
a free account for the
rest of 2013!
Rob Connell
Managing Director
Smeebi Ltd.
rob.connell@smeebi.com
UK + 44 20 8123 1302
twitter.com/Smeebi
facebook.com/Smeebi
www.smeebi.com
To read the latest BI news and
product updates please visit our
blog on www.smeebi.com/blog
Monday, June 17, 13