Saying that “Data is king” still holds. Now more than ever, people are generating huge amounts of data every day—from social media to the Internet of Things (IoT) people have at their homes or offices. With the exponential growth of connected products and almost 4.57 billion active internet users, data creation is only poised to grow more as time goes by.
All of this data contributes to the wealth of enterprise information that organizations can analyze to find insights. A cohesive business intelligence and analytics environment that provides visibility into all enterprise information and reports will help businesspeople be able to deliver value from these analytic assets.
Further, since traditional data governance is designed to control only a small, critical subset of data, it is no longer sufficient in today’s massive data landscape. Organizations need a governed environment – encompassing all enterprise information and reports – where analysts and businesspeople can benefit from trusted data as they make operational decisions and do their daily work.
According to an IDC survey, more than half of businesses indicated a lack of trust in the results of their data analysis, as more and more data users are exploring various analytics tools without a proper governance perspective. Difficulty in keeping a unified approach in this complex landscape may result in more serious consequences for non-compliance.
Thus, organizations need to look beyond traditional data governance. In this age of modern data and analytics, a change of mindset is necessary—that which not only focuses on data but also on its reporting and analytics.
ZenOptics’ Decision Confidence Platform presents three keys on how to have a governed environment that will drive better decisions for your organization.
Empowering your businesspeople and analysts with a governed reporting environment of all enterprise information assets will not only drive better decisions but also ensure standardization and consistency as information is used from across the enterprise. To learn more, request a demo today!
Digitalization has given rise to innovations in technology to keep up with the rapid growth of data, as well as help turn this vast amount of data into insights. From traditional spreadsheets to Business Intelligence (BI) solutions, organizations today are transforming their businesses to be data-driven.
Research shows that the Business Intelligence market is projected to reach $39.35 billion by 2027. Part of the BI market growth is due to the increasing adoption of self-service BI and reporting solutions that empower business people to work with their respective data independently with minimal help from IT.
The proliferation of reporting tools makes it possible for more and more people to access multiple BI applications so they can view and manipulate their reports. But as the number of applications increases, the number of risks also rises. Multiple applications mean multiple reports existing in multiple, isolated systems which can lead eventually to inconsistent information.
Gartner’s research shows that while Business Intelligence solutions have been around for quite some time, user adoption is still hovering at only 30%. These numbers show the gap between the data and information that is available for analytics and software user adoption to conduct the analysis. If people do not know the reports exist in a BI tool, then the proliferation of BI reporting tools potentially creates more challenges than it addresses.
There are numerous reasons why reports can remain unused, but the most notable ones are:
When reports exist in disparate systems, it creates an incomplete picture of enterprise information, thus reducing users’ confidence in BI reports.
It is not enough to just provide report users with BI tools to help with their data. Poor user adoption usually stems from not having enough communication with them during the implementation stage. For this reason, the low adoption rate can be caused by the following:
Report users must familiarize themselves with the reporting tool. If users do not have enough knowledge on how to use the BI tool, then they will just remain with the status quo.
According to Bain’s survey, 66% of executives report that digital disruption and software solutions are rapidly changing the rules of competition. However, there is still major concern about increasing user adoption so that the tools can turn data into a competitive advantage. Thus, it is paramount to consult report users who directly use the BI reporting tool. If report users think that such a tool is just an additional step to their work routine, they may not see its value.
In order to maximize the investment in BI solutions and increase adoption, it is important to simplify the experience for the user. Providing a single pane of interaction for businesspeople to seamlessly switch from one tool to another and access information from across the enterprise BI and analytics ecosystem is a must.
ZenOptics addresses the problems caused by too many BI tools and disparate data sources. It provides a single interface to connect to all analytics assets with portal-like capabilities and establishes an analytics catalog, governance, and statistics to guide the usage of information.
The ZenOptics Decision Confidence Platform makes it possible to have frictionless access to cross-platform information assets so report users can significantly enjoy better governance, control, and visibility with just a single point of access as they make business decisions.
To request a demo, connect with our BI experts today!
When it comes to business, decision-making is a crucial task, but it is also one of the most difficult. Data-driven organizations recognize the importance of using the right data at the right time to make decisions, but finding and accessing that data can be a challenge when vital pieces of information are scattered among disparate BI and analytics platforms in the organization. These information silos create challenges and introduce uncertainty in the decision-making process.
As companies empower employees with BI and analytics to work with data, what often happens is that the number of tools and applications in the ecosystem grows rapidly due to infrastructure needs and preferences. This creates siloed information and a lack of visibility into all the analytics assets that exist and are available—and often necessary—to make decisions. So what exactly are the problems that arise from having disparate systems?
Inefficiency. The ease of doing any given task largely depends on whether or not you have reasonable access to your tools. In 2018, a study conducted by Braintree said that employees use 10-15 applications on average for their work. These employees lose valuable time not only switching between platforms and signing in to each, but this also disrupts thought processes and requires refocused attention to proceed with the intended task. This is just a peek into the inefficiency that happens when a business contends with information scattered in disparate systems. Wouldn’t it be better to provide a single point of access to allow employees to seamlessly view and use all the information assets of the company?
Vulnerability. The more complex the decision, the more risk can be introduced in the process. Each added step or connection not only wastes time, it increases the likelihood of something going wrong. At best, this could simply cause a misstep or give your company a minor headache. The worst that could happen is you’ll have a disaster on your hands. Simplifying the decision-making process with a platform that provides guardrails and assurances can reduce vulnerability.
Poor Decisions. Frequent, consistent operational decisions are necessary in order to run the business well. Without access to all the relevant information to make operational decisions, companies risk making bad decisions and pushing the organization forward perhaps in the wrong direction. When you have a clear picture of all the appropriate factors impacting your business decisions, you are better able to position yourself for the best possible outcomes and be competitive for the future. Recognizing the analytic assets available to you is part of confidently moving forward.
Unnecessary Spending. At the end of the day, every factor that can affect your operations shifts your profits and bottom line. And most of those listed above can really pull you down. It costs a pretty penny to deal with disparate systems, so this is another area where a single platform that catalogs cross-platform analytic assets and supplies usage statistics will pay off.
ZenOptics presents concrete solutions to the problems caused by siloed, isolated BI and analytics. It supports operational decision-making by providing a single point of access to information, an analytics catalog with associated metadata from the source systems, report and analytics governance, and usage statistics for optimizing the environment. Using ZenOptics, decision-makers can enjoy simplified access to information, visibility into all the information available, and the guardrails of a governed environment.
The ZenOptics Platform is based on three major pillars:
Access. With the integration established by smart connectors, ZenOptics ensures that customers are able to easily retrieve relevant information, regardless of which platform it exists within. ZenOptics gives you better insight through a catalog of information assets, automated metadata, and inherited security and authorizations for smooth access.
Assure. It’s not enough to have data available. It’s also crucial to organize and govern these assets so that they flow through prescribed paths for usability. ZenOptics gives you the ability to certify reports, map ideal workflows, deliver recommendations, and even standardize terms with BI glossary.
Accelerate. The features within the acceleration layer contribute to a consistent, efficient decision-making process for you. This is perfect for collaboration and communication between teams or for setting “favorites” for a personalized work experience. Other features available are workflow automation, usage statistics, and cross-platform search.
Among those who will benefit from this platform are business users and analysts, BI stewards, and IT Management. ZenOptics can deliver increased productivity and confidence in decision-making, a governed environment for driving decisions, and financial optimization of BI and analytics investments.
With the massive leaps that technology has taken over the decades, managing business has become vastly different. In a lot of ways, access to more advanced tools—the least of which is the internet—has made life easier for business owners and leaders. However, this has also given people much more complexity to cope with.
It’s not entirely accurate to say that business intelligence (BI) environments in the past were simple. Various industries have always had to deal with some sort of complexity, including unexpected challenges or problems that pop up. One of the main differences between then and today is the sheer amount of information that businesses have to deal with. What used to be simple systems and interactions before have grown complex partly and ironically because of the technology intended to simplify things in the first place.
As one example, consider a small bakery. Such a business 30 years ago would have been concerned about comparatively fewer things. This may include inventory, employee salary, ingredients, other expenses, and profit. Nowadays, it would also have to deal with social media pages, walk-in sales vs. online orders, Yelp reviews, CCTV security, and other concerns on top of those previously listed. It doesn’t necessarily mean that things have gotten harder, just more complex. This is especially true for bigger companies that deal with more diverse industries.
One of the reasons for unnecessary complexity is report duplication. There are several reasons why this happens, but generally, this stems from systems growing more advanced and starting to interconnect with each other. And when there are several points generating and storing information, it often results in data being unnecessarily duplicated.
It may seem like duplicate data will have little effect on an organization. After all, there’s a saying that goes, “It’s better to have and not need, than need and not have.” Unfortunately, this doesn’t really apply in the business world where almost everything has a corresponding cost. The fact is, report duplication can have severe repercussions, including inefficiency, poor cost management, unnecessary data storage, and ineffective customer service.
In order to deal with duplicate data and reports, it is necessary to be able to recognize them first. There are a few ways to make this easier:
Standardize. It’s easier to handle multiple streams of data when all the people and divisions within an enterprise are guided by the same standards. Aside from this, streamlining the workflow will also help identify and remove operational overlaps that may be causing duplicate reporting.
Merge related data. Establishing connections between records should be the first step to take before either deleting or merging them. The latter is usually preferable, given that there is inherent value in all kinds of data. Having a single master record is better than having several separate but related files.
A BI Platform enables you to collate, organize, and analyze data from different sources. This will allow you to more easily identify duplicate reports and take steps to remove redundancies or merge data as necessary. You can get direct access to all analytics assets, giving you better visibility and allowing you to address problems like distributed or duplicate reporting.
Complexity has always been a constant when it comes to business. And when it comes to business intelligence, the best way to address this complexity is to understand what kind of data you have and organize them so they are as simple and straightforward as possible.
Tools like the ZenOptics analytics catalog are invaluable when it comes to navigating today’s complex BI environment. They enable productivity, collaboration, manageability, and governance. And ultimately, these tools allow businesses to drastically reduce costs and improve their number one priority: the bottom line.
We have various plans that can be tailor-fit to your specific needs. Contact us today!
In today’s fast-paced business environment, analyzing data in real time to drive big decisions is a must in order to stay ahead of the competition. This is why more and more enterprises are employing business intelligence (BI) tools to deliver snapshots of the current state of their business as well as support their growing data analysis needs.
Business Intelligence capitalizes on software and services to convert data into actionable insights that can be used to make intelligent business decisions. Almost 50% of enterprises are expecting BI to deliver better decision making. This is because BI tools can analyze large quantities of data sets and present analytical findings in the form of reports, charts, graphs, and dashboards to provide users with detailed information of the state of their business. While classic BI is confined within IT who are more adept in analyzing data coming from different data stores, modern BI or self-service BI is for casual or non-technical users who need more flexibility and self-reliance in reporting and analysis.
The proliferation of self-service BI tools makes it possible for business users or non-technical staff to create actionable information quickly from their data without waiting for IT to generate the reports. Additionally, self-service BI tools empower business users to be more self-sufficient in filling any gaps in reports and backlogs that may exist in their organization. Its aim is to provide users with more freedom and responsibility at the same time.
Self-service BI is now becoming an accepted norm for organizations to accelerate the pace and agility of getting more people to work with data independently. But with a growing number of businesses leveraging more BI tools for employees to solve specific problems, it has created BI silos where data becomes duplicated and obstructed, leading to inefficiencies and inconsistent decisions across the organization.
With the abundance of self-service BI tools for end users, organizations have now realized that if they don’t have streamlined processes in place, their business decisions are bound to be inconsistent especially if they lack a common definition of data.
Thus, implementing self-service BI governance is a must to provide control over data standards as well as designate the essential roles and responsibilities within the organization. Governance ensures that reports reflect data context and meaning correctly as well as controls the level of access to them. It is the key to establish visibility and security over the reporting environment.
Self-service BI governance can be enabled through a report management hub. A unified report management hub provides a single access point where all the reports across the entire reporting environment as well as reporting tools are visible. It facilitates collaboration across users thereby increasing productivity. Leveraging a unified report management hub makes it possible to apply a uniform governance process regardless of the reporting tool.
ZenOptics offers its BI Analytics Catalogue that enables productivity, collaboration, manageability, and governance. In a single interface, ZenOptics provides direct access to all analytics assets, including reports, dashboards, spreadsheets, applications, and data.
Connect with our BI experts today to learn more on how your organization can streamline report management using self-service BI governance.
As technology advances, businesses see a rise in the number of assets that they can utilize to drive growth and success. Today, data has turned into one of the most powerful of these assets—and businesses have started to realize this. According to a Deloitte survey, 96% of the respondents believe that data analytics will be important to their organization within the next three years. Similarly:
These sentiments are shared widely, as Reuters anticipates that the global market for business intelligence or BI will grow to almost 30 million dollars by 2022.
However, reaping returns on BI investments is another thing. Gartner says that 70% to 80% of BI projects fail, and that can be chalked up to a couple of mistakes, three of the most important of which are discussed below.
One of the most significant mistakes that a business can make when venturing into BI investments is to have an incoherent list of goals. All too often, enterprises approach analytics as organizations with segmented parts that have differing visions of what analytics can do. This results in data silos and inconsistent processes that impede the potential of business intelligence for your business.
To correct this, make sure that all necessary departments are united in understanding and defining your analytics goals. Both IT and management should work together to marry differing views, hash out misconceptions, and approach BI with a clear set of goals.
It is also a downright waste of resources to invest in BI when your team isn’t reinforced with the resources that it also needs to make sure that capabilities are established, grown, and developed. These can range from people to key structures, whether they are in-house or sourced from outside. If you don’t have a solid enough in-house BI team, work toward creating a virtual BI team.
Finally, do not underestimate the value of a comprehensive and integrated analytics platform. Most businesses have disparate reporting tools or other legacy structures built into their BI platforms, and this not only contributes to inefficiencies but also seriously undermines the benefits of analytics for your business.
ZenOptics offers an Intelligent Analytics Catalog that provides multiple functionalities in one place. With this platform, you have access to all your analytics assets, such as reports, spreadsheets, dashboards, and applications, saving your business:
Ramp up collaboration, productivity, manageability, and governance in your BI project from one place! Contact us today.
As more and more businesses make digital transformation their top agenda, data is fast becoming a core corporate asset. But in order to utilize this data, it must be readily available, of high quality, and relevant.
IDC predicts that by 2025, worldwide data will grow to 175 zettabytes and 30% of this will need real-time processing. The growth of data will continue to rise and technologies such as Machine Learning, Analytics, and Business Intelligence can be leveraged by organizations to transform their structured and unstructured data into actionable insights.
Business Intelligence (BI) makes use of tools to deliver fast, easy access to insights concerning an organization’s status quo using their available data. One of BI’s essential tools is a dashboard which can be used even by non-technical end users to automatically create charts and graphs from available data and generate reports which can aid in decision making.
Many organizations, however, think that buying off-the-shelf BI products is enough to give them detailed intelligence about the state of their business. But deploying the technology behind any BI initiative is the easiest part, and it is getting the personnel and the processes portions right that are challenging. In fact, 64% of business and technology decision-makers have difficulty getting answers from their dashboard metrics. Furthermore, the introduction of new tools and disparate data sources often create a complex environment where data analysis can become fragmented and decisions are inconsistent.
This is why BI governance is needed.
The emphasis of BI governance is on the design, implementation and effectiveness of BI tools to achieve business objectives and increase return of investment.
BI tools are invaluable to organizations because they can provide insights into new markets, ensure alignment with business objectives and adherence to regulatory guidelines. Adopting a BI governance model is essential in the implementation and sustainability of BI efforts for the long run. Here are the steps for developing a BI Governance Model:
In order to maximize the benefits of BI, it is paramount to adopt a BI governance model. Failure to do so can lead to unfortunate consequences such as exposure to regulatory risks, loss of reputation and customer confidence.
If your organization does not have a BI department, consider working with a third-party provider that can assist you in your BI initiatives. ZenOptics offers its BI Analytics Catalogue that enables productivity, collaboration, manageability, and governance. Using a single interface, ZenOptics enables governance by providing cross-platform certification, a platform for self-governance, and complete analytics asset governance.
Connect with our BI experts today to learn how to enable a BI governance model that is perfect for your organization.
Technology has changed the landscape of business, and recent innovations have only reinforced the increasing digitization of data. With countless sources that generate multiple data points, organizations must be equipped with the right resources to harness all this information and use it to facilitate decision-making.
Research also indicates that the volume of data gathered by businesses globally will only double every 1.2 years. Thankfully, Business Intelligence (BI) tools are available to transform data into insights that can drive revenue for sales initiatives, frame plans for growth and expansion, streamline HR processes, and more.
The world of business has embraced Business Intelligence. According to reports, the global BI market is expected to reach almost $30 billion by 2022, and as many as 46% of small businesses now use BI tools such as virtual networking as a key component of their strategies.
Similarly, over 90% of sales and marketing teams that were surveyed admitted that cloud BI is integral to their efficiency and results. And the top three companies in various industries that heavily use data-driven decision-making were found to be 5% more productive and 6% more profitable than their less successful counterparts.
Nucleus Research suggests that every one dollar spent on Business Intelligence generates as much as $13 back as a return on investment. However, it is important to note that BI must be used effectively so that its benefits can be enjoyed optimally.
The six challenges outlined below are the foremost roadblocks presented by the use of BI that may hinder your organization’s growth.
Duplicate data may sound like a harmless thing, but in enterprises, it can delay the efficient flow of business processes and even impact the bottom line. A 2013 report suggested that data duplication happens in about 92% of companies, and it can yield several unfavorable consequences, such as:
If duplicate reports are an issue, unused reports are even more so. These available but underused resources not only stop you from taking full advantage of Business Intelligence, but they also prevent proper decision-making and efficiency in your business processes. Where they could have provided necessary insights, unused reports only take up storage space and make your team miss out on promising developments and opportunities.
There are various reasons why reports can remain unused, but the most prominent ones are:
While Business Intelligence has been welcomed by enterprises, its adoption rate is still only at around 30%. The most probable cause for this is that when resources are added, many organizations fail to include their human resources into the mix, thereby running the risk of their team members not using the BI tools as they have intended. Additionally, low adoption rate can be explained by:
Underused licenses not only add to Business Intelligence costs, but they also prevent your organization from fully reaping the rewards that can be generated from BI tools and resources.
Many companies report that more than half of their BI licenses are underutilized, and this is due to many possible reasons. First, there’s poor software management, such as manual license and version tracking. Also, some companies don’t invest in proper training, which results in employees not knowing how software licenses are supposed to help them perform their jobs easier and better.
Business Intelligence is designed to facilitate better decision-making through the use of business insights generated by data. However, human decisions cannot be replaced by algorithms; in many cases, organizations that don’t fully harness their BI often suffer from lack of organizational decision-making by higher management.
Finally, there’s the problem of complexity. BI is positioned to simplify complex data into actionable insights, but if your BI platform is too complex to use, your organization will not be able to maximize all its potential for scalability and growth. A simple way to gauge if your current BI model is too complex is to consider these conditions:
At ZenOptics, we are dedicated to helping organizations leverage Business Intelligence to drive their businesses forward. Our analytics catalog enables improved productivity, collaboration, manageability, and governance through offering direct access to all your assets via a single interface. By transforming your dashboards, reports, spreadsheets, applications, and data into actionable insights, we deliver:
We have various plans suitable for your specific business needs and requirements. Contact us today!
Poor data management can be extremely costly. According to global research firm Gartner, organizations lose up to $9.7 million a year from bad business decisions stemming from poor data quality. As a whole, businesses in the United States lose an estimated $3.1 trillion every year — all due to bad data.
Hidden data carry their own penalties. This refers to information that is available within a business but cannot be easily accessed by users who need them; in other words they’re in a data silo. Siloed report management can result in anything from a slight inconvenience to an expensive nightmare, and there are several reasons:
Having established the disadvantages of siloed data, the question now is how to improve data management and reporting. A Business Intelligence (BI) Platform enables people to collate, organize, and analyze data from different sources. This analytical tool gives decision makers better insight into the status of the business and on what steps to take next in order to succeed. It provides several benefits, including:
A well-designed BI platform offers many features: customized dashboards, data visualizations, scorecards, and more. These will enable productivity, collaboration, manageability and governance. It gives users a single interface from which they can get direct access to all analytics assets such as reports, dashboards, spreadsheets, and applications — thus solving the problems related to siloed and distributed reporting.