Connecting >Business with Analytics

BI & Reporting are not the Same >

📊 Reporting & 📈 Business Intelligence areNot the Same…“Many customer I have come across,immediately get the concept ofBusiness Intelligence (BI). Theyunderstand that if they keep onreporting the way they have, i.e.straight from their ERP system thatthey are just like this cartoon.Struggling to see the bigger pictureand battling with the day to daydelivery of information, they aredragging a wheelbarrow with a squarewheel. “Izak Bester, Product Manager, Karabina Software

📊 ReportingReporting is seen as static information being retrieved from a sourcesystem like an ERP. Most ERP systems have these static reports as partof the package as an out-of-the-box (OOTB) offering. Most of thesereports cover areas like purchase orders, invoices, goods received,debtors balances, inventory on hand, financial statements, vendorand customer lists, resourcing, planning, etc.

📊 These Reports are mainly in List Format…

These reports are mainly in a list format with multiple lines containing

additional details. Each of these reports is run by supplying additional

parameters to limit the reports in terms of number of rows being

returned from the ERP system.

The main reason for limiting the number of rows is that any ERP has

been architected to get data in very quickly. An ERP’s sole purpose is

to capture information into a database by providing the end-user

with predefined fields to control the input.

📊 Reports are Executed Against the ERP System Affecting Performance….

The execution of these reports is also directly against the ERP’s

database, impacting the performance of the system when large

reports are run.

You will also find that any ERP system consists of hundreds, some

thousands, of tables within the database to store the data. The data

model is usually referred to as a relational model seeing the way the

tables are related to one-another.

📊 Static Reports are Sufficient if you run your Business Day-to-Day….

Now these reports are sufficient if you run your business on a day to

day principle, as they are very much historical and transactional in

nature

“Frankly, none of the customers I have met run their business in this

manner.”

📈 Business IntelligenceWhat is business intelligence (BI)? Business Intelligence allows theend-user to have an aggregated view of the data by differentdimensions. Each subject area within the business, like sales, debtors,creditors, finance, inventory, hr, payroll, procurement and marketinghave their measures and dimensions. Allowing these units to have a360-degree view of the business.

📈 Business Intelligence is a Combination of Software and Technologies…

BI is a combination of software and technologies that helps you

understand your business from all of these different dimensions. BI

gives you that single version of the truth, by consolidating data

across multiple systems within your business. A BI system is

architected to get information out very quickly. This architecture has

proven to deliver high performance across large data volumes as well

as high number of users.

📈 Business Intelligence uses Technologies to deliver Reports, Dashboards & Scorecards

BI also uses some technologies like in-memory and On-line Analytical

Processing (OLAP), to deliver reports, dashboards and scorecards to

end users much quicker. Allowing for ad-hoc analysis, for end users

that understands the business as well as the data and would like to

drill, slice and dice and pivot their data, referred to as self-service BI.

Some differentiators between Reporting & Business Intelligence

📊 Reporting VS 📈 BI

Delivery

• Reporting gives static reports, parameterised and in a list format.

• BI allows for dynamic dashboards and scorecards across multiple areas

within the business, providing a consolidated view to drill, pivot and slice-

and-dice your data.

• BI also goes a step further and allows for predictive analytics like

forecasting based on historical data, patterns and trend.

• Allowing you to be pro-active, compared to a reporting environment that

only allows for reactive management.

📊 Reporting VS 📈 BI

Performance

• BI can deliver high volumes of data to a large number of users, because

of the combination of architecture, software and technologies.

• It is important to understand that BI does not sit within the ERP like

reporting as much as it sits on top of the ERP. Thus, the BI environment is

not impacting the ERP environment and vice versa.

📊 Reporting VS 📈 BI

Analytics

• As mentioned before, reporting provides a static list format of data

based on certain parameters, where BI provides dynamic visualisations

to better understand your data.

• End users can easily interact with data like, slicing and dicing the data, to

spot outliers, patterns and trends. Giving business users the capabilities

to analyse their data across time, customers, vendors, products etc.

📊 Reporting VS 📈 BI

Decision Making

• Reporting allows for short term and reactive decision making as the

reports are very static and a lot of manual work needs to be done to

consolidate data from multiple dimensions.

• BI allows decision-making that directly affects your strategy. Key

performance indicators (KPI) are set within a BI environment and can be

closely tracked, to monitor business performance.

How do you move from Reporting to Business Intelligence?There are many vendors out there that provide BI solutions, somebeing more advanced and integrated than others.

“A complete BI solution that provides a data warehouse, businessspecific subject area cubes and a visual presentation layer that comesat an affordable cost is very hard to find.”

Use Business Analytics to move from Reporting to Business Intelligence?

Business Analytics provides data warehouse automation that allowsfor rapid warehouse deployment for that single version of the truth,cubes that provide business specific subject areas exposed andvisualised through a familiar Excel interface to provide self-service BIwithin in the Microsoft framework.

Chat to us About Leveraging your Business Data… Our Customers Did!

Business AnalyticsContact Karabina Software

Tel: 011 463 8155

Email: info@karabinasoftware.com

Web: www.karabinasoftware.com