My name is Ross Waterston and I have been a Consultant for nearly 15 years. In that time I have changed the focus of what I do from Process Implementation to Business Intelligence. That may seem an odd switch, but really it was seamless. I used to deploy IT Service Desk tools for large multinational companies. The standard request was “So how do we get reports for management out?”, and over time, “Ok, I’ll set something up for you” became the focus of what I do. Power BI was the first platform I had really used that could deliver everything in a way that an end user could manage to own and maintain.
It would be nice to say that this was a trend, but it has been going on across my whole career even in my days as a lowly Contractor before I made the switch to Consulting (contractors “Do”, Consultants “Shape”), and it does not look like it will be changing anytime soon despite the issues still being the same and no standards being defined and implemented ( yes, this is a source of annoyance to me). Every tool you and your organisation procure will have “In built reports that you can customise!” Often these are pretty good and it would be wrong to think I am belittling them. They can really help you to understand the business process that tool is supporting.
However, the result is that we have multiple reporting locations and they are all slightly different. This also leads many organisations to make their Enterprise Analytics platform emulate that business process logic as opposed to a functional logic.
In business we always talk about processes, “How is our sales pipeline performing?”, “Do we have enough stock in the warehouse to fulfil our orders?”, the reality is also that many of our teams will work supporting a single business Process. Sales teams support the Sales Process for example. So why am I saying reporting should be Functional – for example, based on the business function rather than the process – especially when I’ve just admitted that there is a near complete cross over for many teams?
The reality is that that assumption is false. Your Sales Team may only focus on the Sales Pipeline and how it is performing, but should they be aware of stock levels or re-ordering as an opener?
Functional Reporting is about bringing everything a person could need to not just do their job but also understand if there are challenges. In other words, how can we put the data and insights they need at their fingertips? This is where the embedded reporting tools that come with all apps these days fail.
This is where the challenges begin for many businesses, and the business has two options -either double down on the inbuilt solutions and continue to use them to the full, (after all, they have been “paid” for right?) This option adds significant complexity for staff because they need to remember multiple tools and locations. Your Sales Team may well be comfortable working in HubSpot and using it for their reports, but can they remember where to go to check the Stock Order system? And more importantly, is the content in a format that they readily understand?
This is the landscape that for me, I typically land in with a new client. They have multiple tools covering different processes or areas within the organisation, but they all exist in isolation from each other, often not just with different links but also with different authentication and credentials. The result is a fractured landscape that does not deliver that unified view to anyone. This is why so often it is now Finance Teams and CFO’s that are leading the approach to us compared to IT functions five years ago.
The solution is to start to consider the whole business landscape and the draw the strands together in a quick yet effective way initially and then as things are confirmed expand and elevate these to more resilient options as required. The core or central element is that Business Intelligence is a reading process not a data recording process, so while resilience is vital it does not have to be the primary focus as it would be In for example an ERP system. This can be very difficult for businesses to grasp, but considering your reporting path is to extract data from a line of business tool that should have redundancy and data integrity, only if there is a requirement to store data versions is there a need to enable robust data storage solutions. As report content and so the data assets become more important that may change, but the change is not driven by a redundancy challenge, more it is driven by usability.
I have zeroed in on Power BI and the Microsoft Power Platform because it delivers a solution that will not only provide a simple interface to allow a business user with intermediate Excel skills to produce interactive report content that can explain the data story far better and to a wider audience when compared to a PivotTable.
When a Consultant starts to work with Power BI, they are able to draw together multiple ETL (Extract Transform and Load) processes from your range of business platforms into a small number of Semantic Models. Then tailor and surface the report content into Function centric apps. Your Sales Team will have a single App, that contains report content from their Sales Tools, their phone system, the Inventory Tracking tools and even a finance overview all in a single link and combined with your corporate Single Sign on. While the initial steps of this can be complicated as they are not intuitive, once the solution is in place it rapidly becomes clear what has been done and why, at which point a Consultant should change gears to begin to support your organisation’s teams, a great solution is only made so when it can be fully owned, managed and maintained within your organisation. Your teams know the platforms, your teams know the personalities involved and your teams know your business strategies and logic. In this stage a consultant offers technical expertise, training and guidance rather than just solution delivery.
Consultancy is not just about being able to present ideas to a Board room, it is more about being able to bring that depth of knowledge and experience that is just is not possible for a client to have, to be able to use that knowledge for the benefit of the client and then to ensure success of the client’s plans, supporting and enabling the training of their internal teams to own and manage the solutions built by the consultancy.
A good Consulting partner should be looking the work with a client until they can be self sufficient and then shake hands and part as friends. While it is a business relationship, consultancy is dependant on trust for value to be fully realised.
Geordie Consulting will leverage their extensive experience and expertise in business intelligence and process implementation to help you transform your organisation. The key to our approach is to integrate the Power Platform to into a cohesive and functional reporting solution. From Line of Business ETL scripts to produce tables of data to be used by Semantic Models as required to Functional Apps, so the Finance App will be different to the Sales App, but the underlying semantic model serving both means that while prestation can be different the values will be the same. We will help your organisation consolidate its data landscape around a single stream of data in a consistent Business Intelligence platform. All while ensuring that your internal knowledge is expanded and extended so your Cost of Ownership for your new Business Intelligence Tool is minimised.
