Eric Anderson, MBA CMC

eanderson@smartpoint.ca 250-882-6543

Getting Actionable Insights – with Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence

• BI / Analytics tools help to integrate existing, disparate, "stovepiped" data already being captured by your company

• BI Tools produce more comprehensive and meaningful reporting and analytics – ie. ACTIONABLE INSIGHT

• These insights support your effort to increase productivity by providing: – decision support – performance benchmarking, and – outcomes measurement

If you are using any of...

• ...then acquiring and implementing the appropriate BI tools will provide you with the ability to merge the information being captured here – into usable and meaningful cross-functional

performance information

Adding “BI” gives value-add to existing systems

• ...and ultimately helps to identify nonconformances, points of wastage, supply chain and process inefficiencies, and thus...

• ...the critical issues underlying productivity that must be addressed.

BI for an SME

• Reliance on tools like spreadsheets have the following dangers:

– They don’t scale very well (and introduce risk)

– They don’t provide actionable insights

– They typically only report on particular transaction types

– They ignore other factors that might affect how the underlying data should be interpreted

Explore BI as one possible “DT” option

• Elicit high-level requirements

• Qualify the "DT" Options

• No “leaping to a solution”

• Arrive at an appropriate solution that supports:

– Operational effectiveness

– Continuous improvement - costs, quality, and time

– Cost focus vs. flow focus

Cost focus vs. flow focus

• Determine where / how the company is currently: – generating, storing, using raw data

• How Intelligence can be used to reduce wastage / exceptions

• Methodologies, processes, architectures, and range of solutions

• ...that can transform your firm's raw data into meaningful information that better supports management's decision-making

Other Key Areas of Focus in BI

• Other processes and technologies such as: • Data integration

• Data quality

• Data warehousing

...this is all about understanding and measuring your CSF’s, which leads to...

• data preparation and data usage – going into the actual presentation layer of reporting, analytics, dashboards, etc.

Barriers to Adopting BI

• Tight budgets

• Lack of organizational / institutional knowledge

• Fewer resources, all of whom are maxed on other projects

– less time to spend on BI planning

But – the Potential Benefits

• Aggregated data from different sources

• Analysis and insight from that data – automatically and configurable

• Improved decision-making – particularly around process flows and inefficiencies

• Risk mitigation benefits

• Ultimately – your firm competes more effectively in marketplace

Four Critical Areas

• Information / Data Sources – Harness data from spreadsheets, financials, contact mgr lists,

payroll systems, asset / inventory / warehouse / production management systems, any other data sources

• Technology – Aggressively-priced alternatives have brought comprehensive BI

technology within reach. Some tools available online, on the Cloud

• Intelligence “rules” – Determine what needs to be measured, and how to measure it

• Implementation and Communication – How to use and get intended meaning from the “I” in “BI”

SME Manufacturing Case

• Isolated data stored for NC cutting equipment contains valuable “tag” information (bar-coded lot number, dates, customer info. etc.)

• Combine this with cutting performance / configurations (by customer)

• Export, transform, and load information to BI layer, and then to dashboard, gives: – Easily distributable, usable information on product

customization, supply chain characteristics – Keys to process flow improvements

• Same principles can be applied to (say) POS data in retail setting

SME Manufacturing Case 2

• Company gained a much clearer understanding of which products for which customers were costing more to produce (and why);

• By taking action on this information, processes were streamlined, and bottlenecks were reduced / eliminated (without moving them somewhere else).

• Better tracking of work-in-progress, upstream supply, implemented “kanban” delivery.

• Required new attention to B2B / e-commerce capabilities

• On to Rob Cooper and e-commerce

• Thanks!