With a more competitive market and the current state of the economy, among other factors, companies continuously search for new strategies and tools in order to make the best decisions possible.
Rapid evolution of information technologies, the automation of many business processes and the possibility to store and manage high volumes of data have helped companies make better business decisions over the past decade.
This is where the concept of Business Intelligence comes in. Business Intelligence refers to being able to predict future events, optimize response times and avoid obstacles — even before they have taken place.
The following are three ways BI can help streamline your business operations:
1. Time savings. One of the key advantages of Business Intelligence is that most business processes are automated, which generates important savings both in time and costs, and in turn contributes to increasing overall productivity levels.
2. Easier and quicker access to information. It is clear that, over the last few years, the amount of business data has propelled. Therefore, it is important that companies focus their efforts on digitizing and collecting their data via document management software. However, it is equally important that Business Intelligence tools offer easily accessible information that clearly shows the evolution of the data, allowing companies to anticipate future events.
3. Correct and relevant decisions. In order to stand apart from the competition, reduce costs and increase profits, a company must make intelligent decisions. To do this, these decisions must logically be based on trustworthy and relevant data, and this is exactly where traditional methods begin to fail.
To help companies bridge the gap, I will be posting a five-part series on the BI tools available for Dynamics GP users and how you can use these tools to provide quick access to data and make the best decisions possible. Some of these tools include: Business Analyzer, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Dynamics GP Excel Reports and Jet Express for GP. We will use some of these tools in this blog series to:
- Part 2 – Install and build a Sales Order Report with Jet Report’s Free Jet Express for GP.
- Part 3 – Use Sales Order Report, built in Part 2, to perform Market Basket Analysis in Excel 2013.
- Part 4 – Build an Excel 2013 Dashboard with Dynamics GP data.
- Part 5 – Use Solver’s BI360 One-Stop Reporting Financial Statements to perform a more automated financial statement variance analysis process.
