BI on a budget: how to manage your data efficiently - business agility

Data management has become a norm in today’s increasingly digital world. The more data we have, the harder it is to manage. Not only that, but harder the data is to manage, the more people are required to manage it. And here’s the problem: sometimes lack of resource (financial or workforce) can mean that effective data management quickly becomes a thing of the past. Before you know it, your data is all over the place and you don’t know where to start to consolidate it again.

‘Budget’ doesn’t just refer to the spend on the end product; there’s also spend on the delivery, set-up, solutions, time spent on the project etc. When ‘budget’ means ‘resource’, there are various areas where you may be limited. Power BI is a powerful tool from Microsoft that can enable your multiple data sources to plug in to one place. What’s even better than that is that you may already have access to it without even knowing it!

Power BI (BI meaning business intelligence) is part of the Office 365 suite (Power BI comes included with Office 365 E5 edition but is also available as a service add-on for other enterprise license plans.) Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools that can deliver insights from your organisation’s data. It enables you to connect to hundreds of data sources, simplify data preparation (e.g. for reporting), and drive ad hoc analysis.

Power BI is many things, one of which is that it’s simple to use. Many large companies may have their very own dedicated data/business intelligence teams. However, there will be plenty of companies (all sizes) who won’t have a dedicated team. They’ll rely on their current workforce to get to grips with the increasing data management workload. With Power BI, you don’t have to be completely tech-savvy to know how it works.

When you type ‘Microsoft Power BI’ into Google, you may get inundated with graphs and buzzwords about data and dashboards. It can be pretty confusing, and if you’re not very tech-savvy with software then it can be easy to say to yourself: “I don’t know what this is, I don’t think I’ll bother using it”. Power BI is laid out very simply and you don’t have to tailor-make everything to your exact specifications if you don’t need to. There are templates that simply ‘come out of the box’ with Power BI and if you’re not clued up on data then it doesn’t mean you can’t use the software.

First of all, we would recommend that you define your needs. Have a look at the problems you need solving. For example, do you have lots of data sources all over the place that need consolidating? Or perhaps you need to be able to give a detailed and professional presentation on your data and you don’t know where to start. We can provide you with tailored advice too – simply get in touch.

We also advise that you collaborate with your workforce on where the needs in the business are. You don’t have to spend more money on policing your data. Using Power BI, you can manage all of the necessary permissions in your team(s). Only relevant people will see what they need to. This is all part of a potentially expensive implementation process that you may be able to bypass yourself.

As it’s part of the Microsoft family, Power BI has collaboration at its core and as such is available on any device, anywhere (it’s secure too). This functionality can free up your resource as the information is readily available on the go (even more reason not to invest thousands in a dedicated on-premises team!) When you need a digital upgrade in your organisation the first thing that will spring to mind is cost. It’s not necessarily just a monetary cost either. Other resources such as an experienced workforce, the amount of time you have as well as any consequential strain on the business whilst the upgrade takes place. Power BI takes a lot of the stress out of the idea of a digital upgrade. It really doesn’t need to be a huge project (unless you want it to be!). Better still, we can help point you in the right direction with where you need to begin. Get in contact with us here and we’ll be happy to help.