Data is no longer just a buzzword. We live in a data-driven world and if you know how to interpret and use data in your organisation, it can make all the difference. A good tool for this is Power BI, which you can integrate in your workplace, Workspace 365. In this blog we explain what Power BI is and how you can use it to your advantage within your workspace, regardless of your role within your organisation.
To start off, you have to know what Power BI is and what you can do with it. Essentially, Power BI is a suite of business analytical tools, to which you can connect hundreds of data sources. Consequently, you get insight into relevant data and you're able to visualise this data in reports. This gives you the ability to discover trends and connections between different kinds of data, to see how processes are running so you can improve them, make better informed decisions, make predictions and to proactively and preventatively act on change.
You can ask Power BI simple questions, which are answered based on all this information.
This all sounds very good, but how do you use this hands-on? The nice thing about Power BI is that the information it shows is customisable to your specific role within the organisation, so that you'll only see the information which is relevant to you. You can integrate these tiles in Workspace 365, so you have the right information in the place where you also reach your applications, news, documents and more. Here we will go further into the different types of roles within an organisation and how they can use Power BI.
As CFO, the most important task is of course the responsibility over everything that has to do with finance, from planning and risk assessment to keeping track of revenue and expenses. With Power BI the CFO can not only keep track of things like profits or overhead and making them clear, but also for instance of customers that have reached their credit limit and information on suppliers. In addition, the CFO can use Power BI to make cash flow forecasts and identify deviations in a timely manner, so that they can be acted upon quickly.
It's easier to sell a product if you have insights into the market, into opportunities and into which activities work and which don't, and that is what Power BI can give to a sales manager. Think about for instance making connections between certain sales activities and the results comprehensible, but also identifying the most important market segments and target groups. The sales manager could use Power BI for predicting (the reachability of) targets and comparing the predictions with the actual outcomes.
As a marketing employee you can mostly focus your data on the customer. After all, the better you know your audience, the better you can communicatie with them. This way, you can for example find out what your customers are saying about you on social media and with what kind of sentiment, and if you can link this to campaigns or other marketing activities you've recently undertaken. Power BI offers a good tool to measure the effects of marketing campaigns, which you can filter per for example segment or geographical area. This way, you can not only find out which marketing activities work (or don't), but also why they do or don't, and if that's possibly only the case in certain areas or with a certain part of your target group. Subsequently you can adjust and focus your marketing efforts, so they fit your target group.
You might not think that someone whose job is so focussed on people, like someone in HR, would have much use for data, but the opposite is true. Power BI can offer many useful insights to the HR employee. For example, Power BI could give insight into the retention and turnover of employees and link this to other factors and improvements, so that the company can work at better retention. This could also be done for people who, after hiring, turned out not to be a good match. On the Power BI dashboard of an HR employee you could also see information on the man/woman ratio within the company, the amount of sick days or the avarage amount of years of service.
With Power BI you can decide for yourself which information you want to be shown. The great thing about Power BI is that, whatever role you have, you don't need a technical background to use it. Subsequently, you have the right information for every type of role. Due to this, employees in retail can see exactly when an item in certain parts of the country (or in different countries) is selling and not in others. Employees at an airline can predict when there needs to be technical maintenance en can handle their fuel as efficiently as possible. In manufacturing employees can keep inventory and make processes go more efficiently, while teachers based on the data Power BI provides can adjust their teaching methods for certain groups of students to ensure better performance.
With Power BI in your digital workspace, you can instantly go from insight to action. You can view your most important information tiles on your dashboard, so you always and everywhere have real-time information and you keep informed on any changes, also on your phone or tablet. This way, you're instantly informed after logging in. Do you want more information? Then you can reach Power BI with one single click.
If you spot any changes, discover trends of make predictions that could influence your company, you can instantly start working on it within Workspace 365. After all, you can reach both your Power BI, all your applications and files from the same dashboard. This way, you can not only stay updated anywhere and at any time, but you can also put this information to use instantly.
With Power BI you get more information to make the right, data-driven decisions and identify aspects that could be improved. By monitoring different kinds of data you discover new connections between different factors, of which you may have not even thought they would affect each other before. Power BI helps you to correctly interpret data. By integrating this in the digital workspace, you make sure that you can offer your customers the best and be more efficient in succeeding in your business goals.