PsiberTech Solutions: September 2015

Whether you are sole proprietor of the business, or project manager handling the entire process, Reports & Analytics can help you monitor what’s going right or wrong and help you to save money & time.

While we hear much about a software application’s performance, UI & uses, two most important pieces of the ecosystem is Reporting & Analytics. These two pieces play a vital role in the business. After all what’s the point of spending all that money and time in creating an application that can record your data but not measure your success?

Start with Data:

There is no shortage of data in the world. Data is extremely powerful and Data rules the world. While some business owners make decision based on the gut feeling, market leaders know the importance of relying on data and making affirmed business decisions. However mere data would not serve the purpose. Data needs to be collected first. In other words you need to know what data you need to obtain that would be of value to your business.

Clarify:

Once you have identified the kinds of data you want to acquire for your system, you need to identify the data that you don’t need in your system. Weed out the unnecessary transaction information. This is especially true for those moving from paper work to custom applications. Eliminate all the form numbers, date, signatures etc. If needed these can be automatically generated or captured via system. Make sure you have the crust of information and not the same clutter that exists in the paper works.

If suppose you are gathering data from old systems, accessdatabase or from flat (csv) files. Use Data Warehousing tools such as ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) to clearly identify, extract, transform and load the good data into your central repository for Analytics & Reporting.

Visualization:

“Don’t tell me, show me and I understand” holds true when it comes to visualizing the Reports and data Analytics. Rows and Columns don’t make sense unless they are transferred into meaningful drilled down reports, or gauges or trends that can be understood at a glance. If you are the decision maker you don’t want to be buried in array of data, what you need is concise information that can propel you in the right direction. If you are developing a custom software application for your business, have a clear conversation with your software consultant to understand what kind of reports would benefit your work.

Web works:

This could be just my perception, but I have seen many of our clients benefitting out of this one decision. Keep your application web based and host it in the cloud / within your office network. This would enable your workforce to access the application anywhere and feed in the required data. This could also mean you can have access to your data from anywhere in the world. Reports and Analytics can be done in real-time and can be generated at single click.

In Short:

There are numerous off the shelf products that can enable you to transform your data into meaningful reports and analytics. However not all of them might be suitable for you. If you build a custom software application you may be able to define your business goals and align them to Reporting & Analytics. Integrating Business Intelligence tools such as Voyager BI would transform your reporting needs to cake walk. Thanks for stopping by and Have a fantastic day.