There is a tendency still to think of Business Intelligence as too sophisticated a technology for the SME market, say experts.
"The irony is that thousands of SMEs are already practising BI at some level through the use of Microsoft Excel, where the BI capabilities of OLAP are built in. You could say that by default the BI tool of choice for SMEs is Excel," says Bridget du Toit, national sales director at Softline Pastel.
WHAT IT MEANS
 Most businesses have the tools in their IT settings to implement a BI solution
|
Says Rian Durandt, BI business unit manager at 3fifteen: "BI need not break the bank. Most organisations already have the tools in their IT environments to implement a BI solution. All they need is guidance and a partner well versed in adapting these tools to the task." He says that most organisations today already have a Microsoft SQL server, Microsoft SharePoint server and are using Microsoft Office as their desktop productivity suite.
"SQL Server houses all of the data and the logic, Microsoft Office provides a familiar front-end to the BI solution and SharePoint server allows them to extend that front-end into the remote world, allowing executives to drill down into their data and extract valuable insight into the business from wherever they may be located in the world," he says.
Once they have such a solution in place, Durandt says companies can begin moving up the food chain.
Du Toit says: "The key advantage that BI confers is the ability to access relevant data quickly enough to be able to make sensible strategic and tactical decisions. As far as Excel goes, most SMEs already have that ability."
But she says there are two difficulties. " Most SMEs are not aware that they already have BI, in Excel. Moving to the next level in any business is dependent not on the technology that's available but management's ability to see what the possibilities are. A small business wanting to be a bigger business doesn't necessarily have the tools to break out of the way it's always done things."
Secondly, she says: "Pureplay BI systems provide the tools, via automated, integrated best practice-based reports and forecasting tools, in a way that Excel on its own cannot," as they provide automation and integration.
Excel errors wreak havoc
But warns Harvey Jones Systems MD Keith Jones: "Excel is still a popular front-end tool, but it is not always the best solution."
Indeed, says 8th Man Consulting MD Adrian van der Merwe, it's time to undo the corporate culture of Excel. "Recently, the use of Excel spreadsheets in financial operations has been highlighted as a risky business. So risky, in fact, that the European Spreadsheet Risk Interest Group was created to fight the battle against the use of dodgy spreadsheets. Its website (www.eusprig.org/stories.htm) has nearly 90 examples of the common problems experienced by users of spreadsheets and the effect these have on business."
Such errors include a problem that developed with the Nevada city budget spreadsheet, causing the 2006 budget to show a R35,7m deficit in its water and sewer fund; and Kodak traced a R78,5m severance error to a faulty spreadsheet.
"Despite the warnings and the numerous examples offered through the hard-earned experiences of spreadsheet victims, organisations continue to use Excel," says Van der Merwe.
"Worse still, they do so even after they have spent millions on implementing financial management solutions designed to improve consolidations, reporting and any other financial activity.
"A company I consulted to in the UK implemented such an application at a cost of R20m, yet users continue to use Excel to manipulate and report financial figures. The result is the presentation of static, inflexible, delayed reports to the financial managers and the CFO. The information may be underpinned by data that is reliable, that represents one version of the truth and is drawn from a single, centralised source; but it is severely under-reported and underused because of the restrictions inherent in Excel," he says.
