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You’ve probably heard the saying, “It’s not what you have, it’s how you use it.” Never is this potentially more true than when we’re dealing with data.
Data is a collection of facts and information turned into a form that’s easier for us to process. It can be numbers, words, measurements or even just observations. Consumer data often holds many insights about your customers – from what they like to buy to how or even when – and can help us build more positive customer relationships.
Gathering consumer data, however, is only one part of the equation – what matters most is how you use it. In today’s tech-led world we are being overwhelmed with data, and if you don’t know what to do with it, your competition will.
Here at Bespoke, we help businesses efficiently process their data to unlock powerful advantages. We do this in five ways:
Data transformation involves changing the format, structure, or values of raw data in order to make it easier to process (see below). It may be constructive (like adding or replicating data), destructive (deleting records and folders), aesthetic (standardising values and labels), or structural (such as moving and combining columns in a database).
We transform data to make it more organised and easier for both humans and computers to use. It helps to improve data quality later down the line (see Data Validation) and protects against potential problems like null values, unexpected duplicates or incompatible formats.
Data transformation might also include data integration – the combination of technical and business processes to combine data from various sources into meaningful and valuable information.
All of these transformative processes are crucial to effective data management, which is the practice of collecting, keeping and using data securely and cost-effectively.
More data of course means more processing, which can significantly add to your company’s workload. That’s where data automation comes in.
Data automation allows mundane data handling tasks to be run effortlessly in the background, without demanding precious employee time. It can be achieved using business applications such as Excel and Power BI, or even a bespoke solution created specifically for you.
Different types of data automation might include data capture automation (making it easier to collect, store and organise large amounts of data at once); automating business processes or workflows, and automated data uploads (leading to increased accuracy and saved time).
Data visualisation is the presentation of data in a graph, chart, diagram or other visual format. It is incredibly important for business dashboards as a way to communicate relationships between the data and allow trends and patterns to be easily seen. Machine learning makes it easier to conduct business analytics such as predictive analysis, which can then serve as helpful insights for future goals.
Data virtualisation, meanwhile, allows an application to retrieve and manipulate data without requiring technical details such as the data’s format or physical location. Similar to data visualisation, the goal of data virtualisation is to create a single representation of data from multiple, disparate sources, without having to copy or move the data.
Data processing is when data is collected and translated into usable information. It is important for this to be done correctly so as to avoid negatively affecting the end data or product.
Starting with the data in its rawest form, data processing converts it into a more readable format (such as a graphs or documents, etc.), enabling company employees and stakeholders to utilise the data for their own data analytics projects.
This type of information processing is typically done using machine learning algorithms, though the process may vary depending on the source of data being processed and its intended use.
Data validation involves checking the accuracy and quality of source data before using, importing or otherwise processing data. When moving and merging data from different sources and repositories, it’s important to make sure it conforms to business rules and doesn’t become corrupted due to inconsistencies. The goal is to create data that is consistent, accurate and complete, to prevent data loss and errors during a move.
Different types of validation depend on destination constraints or objectives. Data validation is also a form of data cleansing.
At Bespoke, we have a team ready to help you prepare to work with your data and understand the opportunities available and even do a data healthcheck. Just shoot us an email to set up your free consultation.
Most small businesses often start out using Excel for their accounting and data management needs. However, this strategy is only doable up to a point.
Although the popular spreadsheet application can do a large number of tasks and is easily available worldwide. It isn’t a long-term solution. This is because while the program itself is sturdy, the spreadsheets created using it aren’t. This often leads to problems later on – which we’ll go into shortly.
Eventually, there comes a time when businesses may need to look at alternative software for their developing needs. This usually involves a move to cloud-based software.
Before we get started, let’s first establish what we mean when we talk about ‘moving to the cloud’.
‘Cloud computing’ is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the internet. ‘The cloud’ refers to servers that are hosted in data management centres all over the world and accessed over the internet, as well as the software and databases that run on those servers. By using cloud computing, users and companies don’t have to manage physical servers themselves or run software applications on their own machines – freeing up a lot of space and resources.
A ‘move to the cloud’ (also known as cloud migration) is the process of moving digital assets such as data, workloads, IT resources, or applications to cloud infrastructure. This might mean moving tools and data from old, legacy infrastructure or an ‘on-premises’ data management centre to the cloud.
Although Excel is an excellent spreadsheet application, it is just that: a spreadsheet application. Many businesses unknowingly try to use the platform for purposes other than what it was designed for or overwhelm it with data and processes it was not meant to handle. This can lead to a myriad of problems, from the small and inconvenient to the large and disastrous.
Here are just a few examples:
Excel lacks the security of a cloud-based system. Imagine the username and password of the person responsible for creating the Excel sheets (or those of a person with editing privileges) were stolen. That means the person who now has access to the sheets can do anything with the data – from deleting to stealing confidential client details.
As the size of data in a spreadsheet grows, the application’s performance plummets. When simultaneous access is added to the mix, things can come to a grinding halt – if the users can open the sheet at all. Many users run into these performance issues when they work with large amounts of data or combine lots of worksheets.
Excel also doesn’t integrate easily with other business applications, which can cause problems with data duplication or overlap.
So long as manual data entry, copy-paste techniques and formula errors are a reality, there is always a risk to the accuracy of data, and spreadsheets can be riddled with mistakes.
As people work with Excel sheets, they may make changes to the main file such as hiding columns or tabs, of which others may not be aware if changes are not communicated, leading to incorrect or incomplete reports. Another problem is that some people may prefer to work on a local version of the file in case there is an error, meaning multiple copies of the same workbook can be passed around the office, inevitably leading to a version mix-up.
Because Excel files don’t have an audit trail, it’s almost impossible to track who did what after a file has been edited a few times by multiple people. This can have a real impact on accountability and data recovery. After all, if you don’t know what was updated, by whom, and on what date how will you be able to restore the original data?
Setting up an Excel spreadsheet that meets all of your financial or data collection needs requires a lot of forethought and planning. It often takes time to set up formulas and reporting and requires manual tracking. You may find your business constantly adding or changing the information on the spreadsheet, which can be a poor use of employee time.
Creating forms to manage data input can also be time-consuming and difficult. Even when done correctly, the forms won’t have enough methods to control and validate inputs from the users, meaning there is always the chance of erroneous data capturing.
Cloud-based software is a definite step up from Excel in a number of ways. As well as being scalable, cost-effective and tailored to your business needs, it also guarantees maximum up-time and does highly secure backups on the regular, meaning you never have to think or worry about your data’s integrity.
Unlimited users are allowed, each with their own access levels so that employees only see what they need to see, and sensitive data isn’t out in the wild. Cloud storage also alleviates the pressure (and costs) of providing data storage on the premises.
Let’s look into the benefits of cloud-based software in a little more detail.
Cloud computing can scale up to support larger workloads and greater numbers of users far more easily than on-premises infrastructure. The latter option requires businesses to purchase and set up additional physical servers, networking equipment, or software licenses – all of which can be very costly (see below).
Companies often find that moving to the cloud vastly reduces the amount they spend on IT operations since their cloud providers handle maintenance and upgrades. Rather than think about keeping things running, businesses can focus more on their actual business goals and getting ahead in their chosen market.
If an application or website is hosted in cloud data management centres instead of in various on-premise servers, then data will not have to travel as far to reach the users. This enables many businesses to significantly improve service performance and the overall user experience for their customers.
Both employees and customers can access the cloud services they need from anywhere. This opens up various business opportunities such as expanding into new territories and allowing their employees to work remotely.
Cloud-based users will also be able to take advantage of other apps that sync with their existing data. This means processes like inventory management, invoicing and client data collection will become a whole lot easier, saving time and reducing costs.
Most cloud-based systems come with an easy-to-use dashboard which you don’t have to set up yourself, giving your employees confidence from the get-go. When a business has a clear financial view from the very start, it can make better strategic decisions.
All real-time financial (and other) data is kept in one central place – online, in the cloud. There’s no need to wait until the month-end to see how things are going – with just a few clicks, real-time reports and budgets are easy to view and share.
Historical data is also always available at your fingertips, and a proper audit trail ensures your data cannot be compromised.
Cloud-based software allows you to create the information any of your customers or stakeholders might need at a moment’s notice, and with more automation and less manual data entry, mistakes and errors are exceptionally rare.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Excel is highly adaptable and basically free. If your business is just starting out and your data is relatively straightforward, an Excel workbook with one administrator could be the best choice. However, even small businesses eventually tend to outgrow their spreadsheets and have to make the move to a cloud-based system.
A move to the cloud can be stressful, but it is often the best choice for organisations that require data confidentiality, access by multiple users, and ease in reporting.
Get in touch if you think there is something Bespoke could help your business with.
In its simplest form, business intelligence (BI) is a set of tools and technologies that can take a source of operational data and turn it into something meaningful and actionable for users.
Becoming an ever-growing technology leveraged by businesses around the world, BI services are widely diversified and are helping companies make powerful decisions that contribute significantly to their success.
Power BI is a cloud-based business intelligence service provided by Microsoft. It is an interactive data visualisation and analytics tool. That can be used to clean and completely transform data from a wide range of systems into meaningful insights.
Users of Power BI can create dashboards that track the metrics they care about the most. Or drill in and (literally) ask questions about their data. The tool also allows them to create rich reports or embed dashboards and reports into reporting portals you already use.
Thanks to Power BI, Microsoft has been recognised by Gartner for the 13th year in a row as a leader in the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms.
Power BI is transforming how businesses work in more ways than one. Here are some of the ways it could change yours.
Thanks to its huge choice of content packs, templates and integrations, Power BI can be used to visualise data from a whole heap of products, apps and services you already use in your business.
Whether you use Xero for accounting, K2 Cloud to build business processes, or Salesforce, Mailchimp, Google Analytics or GitHub, Power BI allows you to visualise the data you have in those services, create reports against them and collate them in a custom dashboard.
This superior compatibility also includes unparalleled Excel integration. Quickly connect Excel queries, data models, and reports to Power BI dashboards in order to analyse, publish and share business data in new ways.
Additionally, businesses can set up the on-premises gateway to explore data sets on their own servers. This enables them to create reports, visualisations, perform calculations (called calculated measures) and set access levels for individual users and data sources to control who can view more sensitive information.
Power BI gives you insight into powerful real-time analytics – from factory sensors to social media sources. This places them firmly on the cusp of emerging trends, ready to act (or react) accordingly.
It’s one thing to gain insight into the here and now, but what about into the future? Power BI enables you to compare different scenarios by dragging a slider bar to show potential changes.
For example, if you add a calculated measure for a figure such as revenue, you can use the New Parameter button in Power BI Desktop to add parameters that change in your What-if scenario – setting the data type, minimum, maximum and increments.
This enables businesses to think outside of the immediate circumstances and make well-planned, strategic decisions to match pre-empted outcomes.
Information is powerful…but in some cases, it can also be overwhelming. Power BI’s Power KPI custom visualisation combines multiple report types into a single tile, enabling users to condense lots of metrics and complex visualisations into a clearer, more simplistic view.
For example, if executives happened to be tracking 20 or 30 metrics, possibly for multiple regions around the world, it’s better to present this at a glance to stakeholders without them becoming overwhelmed with too many charts and figures. It also makes it easy for the user to look up information quickly in meetings. This means not just faster access, but also more transparency and understanding all around.
It’s not just business users who have large amounts of information they need to distil down for insights.
IT can also benefit from visualising data for IT monitoring tools, which is provided by the Power BI solution template for Azure Activity Logs. There are templates for a range of other tools too, and IT users can build their own dashboards and reports for other tools as long as they can get the data into a SQL Server or Azure SQL database.
Without access to company-wide BI software, the IT department can also become an overburdened and over-relied team to provide valuable company data, dashboards and reports. Constant requests to IT to change reports can quickly lead to bottlenecks and decreased productivity, which only leads to slowing down business output elsewhere.
A robust BI solution, on the other hand, empowers business users with self-service analysis, reporting, and dashboarding. This helps to place the power of data back into the users’ hands, who actually benefit from analysing data to meet business goals.
While spreadsheets, reports, and charts are crucial to operations, the overall purpose of Power BI is to offer a global health picture of what’s driving your business.
Without a clear picture telling you what’s impacting your top line and bottom KPIs, your business won’t be able to make truly informed decisions. The real value of business analytics is to deliver clear and actionable data that will have a significant positive impact on your business – exactly what Power BI aims to provide.
Bespoke can help your business get started with Power BI and see you on your way to data-driven success. Contact us for a demo today and to speak with us about Microsoft BI consultancy.
In the meantime, be sure to download our free guide on introducing your company to the Power Platform, including sharing its powerful benefits with decision-makers and stakeholders.
The amount of data generated, consumed and handled on a day-to-day basis is bigger than ever before. ‘Big data’ has transformed business practices, to the point where a company’s use and collection of data can be integral to its success.
More data of course means more processing, which can significantly add to your company’s workload. That’s where data automation comes in.
With a reliable automation system, mundane data handling tasks can run effortlessly in the background, freeing up your workforce to work on other things and increasing overall results.
Data automation can be achieved using business applications such as Excel and Power BI. It is implemented to take over general ongoing data-related tasks that would usually require a lot of time and energy.
Types of data automation include:
Data automation can be used in various departments within businesses from a variety of sectors. Some of the most common can include:
Perhaps least surprisingly, data automation saves a tremendous amount of time. Not only can it take care of multiple processes at once, but it also saves staff from having to perform arduous, time-consuming tasks, such as data collection, filing, analysing and processing. This frees up your workforce for more important projects, thus boosting overall productivity in other parts of the business.
Data automation also leads to increased visibility. Imagine clusters of filing cabinets in different places, all stuffed full of important data that was a chore to sift through. Thanks to cloud-based storage, data can be made available to anybody who needs it from wherever they are. Saving precious time and streamlining workflows.
Many manually processed documents like invoices will pass through several hands before finally being approved and paid. In fact, research firm Gartner found that the cost of processing invoices in the UK was on average anywhere between £4 and £25, with some businesses even spending £50 per invoice.
Meanwhile, data capture automation has been found to cost up to 20 times less than manual data capture. Providing a seriously lucrative opportunity for businesses to shave pounds off their processing costs (and take pressure off finance teams!).
Many accounts-payable departments have numerous hidden costs and expenses. Not to mention that manually storing data requires added labour, organisation and office space costs. Imagine how much you could save…just by automating your data processes.
Because automated data systems can process many datasets or documents per minute. This helps to increase output massively, leading to faster turnaround times, more relaxed staff and inevitably, happier clients.
As well as encouraging more satisfied staff (who will surely appreciate not having to spend endless hours on mundane data entry tasks), it also frees up space in the business for growth, creativity and innovation. It can be said that a company is only as good as its data. Continuously monitoring, refining and modifying one’s business strategy requires access to accurate and relevant data, all of which will contribute to sustained business success.
Data automation doesn’t just make it easy to collect and access data; it also provides extra security too. Most automated data management systems continuously create back-ups of your data in the cloud, so your data is always available and always preserved.
As mentioned earlier, data capture and processing can be difficult, time-consuming tasks – ones that very few people can do for hours on end without making a mistake.
Natural human error and eventual fatigue will undoubtedly lead to errors somewhere along the line. Meaning lost time and more costs for your business to put right. Remembering the 1-10-100 rule, a company could spare far more money by ensuring they have all their data processes properly automated, in order to prevent as many errors as possible and be able to detect and address issues quickly when they do come up.
This will in turn lead to a smoother, more improved service for your clients and set your company apart from its competitors.
Bespoke can help you find an effortless automated data solution that fits seamlessly into your business.
Get in touch with our team to discuss your business needs. Or take a look at our range of solutions to see what we can do for you.
