Forward-thinking SMEs are getting more out of their
computer system investments by using special software to
help deliver Business Intelligence (BI) quickly and easily to
the desktop. Such information avoids spreadsheet errors
that could seriously damage the health and wealth of a
company, says Chris Safhill of K3 Business Technology Group

Companies that have invested in
modern Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) and Customer Relationship
Management systems (CRM) will be able to
use the built-in analytical tools provided by
the system. SYSPRO, for example, offers a
wide range of pre-made dashboards that are
designed specifically to meet the needs of
manufacturing and distribution companies
straight out of the box.

Using these easily navigable dashboards,
means that managers and other staff can
gain instant access to important information
residing within a system’s database.

Push-button simplicity
This automated procedure eliminates
manual information gathering and reduces
administration time and costs. The
dashboard provides push-button simplicity
and speed to getting the information – no
more requests for other people to create
reports and send them to the people who
need them and so on. I believe anyone
thinking of upgrading to a new
computer system should give
serious thought to dashboards.

It should be noted that such
dashboards can be improved
further with the addition of
easy to use business
intelligence software. The
benefits of business
intelligence are not restricted
solely to those companies
that have upgraded their
computer systems. Indeed,
in these challenging
economic times some
organisations are choosing
not to buy new systems for
buying sake. Instead, they are
researching how they can do more with what
they already have.

This is not straightforward because as a
company grows, so does the extent of its
information silos. This is exacerbated by each
department recording information and
creating reports in its own way. The
administration time and effort needed to
collate the information contained in each
report can be a major issue, pulling people
away from their main jobs and creating
bottlenecks for the business.

Some see the use of spreadsheets to be a
way forward and are satisfied with this flat
view of their business. However, take care.

One wrong number could be disastrous –
some errors may not see the light of day for
weeks and by that time the damage is done.

Creating a monthly spreadsheet report also
adds further inertia to getting things done as
each one can take days to produce.

Instead of this slow and error-prone
spreadsheet process, companies need a single
true view of the information buried deep
within their various systems.

Free trial
K3 Business Technology Group offers a
software product called QlikView. This is a
relatively cost effective BI solution that is
suitable for any industry. It can be
implemented in days rather than weeks and
a free copy is available for trial. The software
is in daily use with thousands of
organisations to provide highly structured
and useful information to drive their
business forward.

The software can be used with any source
of data and K3 Business Technology Group
encourages its use with our own business
system solutions, adding even more power to
SYSPRO and Microsoft CRM. These stateof-
the-art systems contain a huge wealth of
information that business intelligence
software quickly brings to the surface,
allowing faster decision making and all of
the associated benefits it brings. Research
shows that customers using this software will
reduce the time needed to analyse
information by 51% and decrease their
reporting overhead by 28%. They will also
increase business agility by 38%.

Chris Safhill is lead CRM consultant at K3
Business Technology Group.