Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Thu, Mar 28, 2013 @ 10:32 AM
Isn’t it crazy to think that over 69% of IT administrators have considered switching careers due to job stress?! Now I would say a lot of that stress is related to dealing with managers and end users who are trying to print reports from ERP/CRM systems. In fact IT admins spend a lot of their time assisting staff with queries to the most basic of IT questions/queries in relation to printing reports. So how can companies really help alleviate or reduce the stress levels of their IT staff?
The answer lies in the Cloud. Moving or implementing a cloud based business intelligence solution will empower your staff and decrease stress levels amongst IT staff. By providing access to an online BI platform, users from various divisions will be able to access business reports pertaining to their department.
Everyone will have the ability to access and analyse business reports via a dashboard over the web. The nice thing about a cloud BI solution is staff can easily access reports from any mobile device, iPad, iPhone, Laptop.
Almost everybody has heard of the omnipotent Cloud – and a lot of companies are now using cloud based email programs like Google’s Gmail for their company email. The benefits of moving your data to the Cloud are multifold – and it is a lot cheaper to do so. In addition, think of the C-O-S-T S-A-V-I-N-G-S!
Users love having access to a cloud system – as workers are often on the go, hopping from meeting to meeting. Open up internet explorer or any browser for that matter and within seconds you are visualizing your data in the form of a groovy dashboard.
Having access to a cloud based reporting system for management meetings facilitates easier access of your data for everyone attending the meeting. So why not consider looking at analysing your data from the Cloud? Security is not an issue when the right controls have been put in place. Big corporations like Revlon a giant in the beauty industry, achieved $70m in cost avoidance and cost savings by moving to the Cloud.
Covali builds dashboards for the Cloud on the GoodData platform, and have a range of apps (BI applications) for a multitude of functions. To name but a few, there is a Sales and Profitability app, GoodMarketing app, GoodSales app, and an Accounts receivable app. Covali’s applications analyse and interpret data in real-time from any ERP/CRM system. These turn-key dashboards, reports and ad-hoc analytics remove the hassle and dial up the business value of deep analytics which is fundamental to accurate reporting on your data.
Going to management meetings will be a lot easier when everyone is singing from the same hymn-sheet so-to-speak. So no more IT staff stress! So given the lack of IT computer knowledge in the workforce (you would be amazed) I think it would be prudent practice for companies to implement a comprehensive BI model in order to comprehensively analyse all of the Big Data streams. It is a well-known fact that excel is highly prone to errors – and no one version of the truth is furnished at management meetings when it is in use. Everyone comes to the meeting with a different set of figures/facts. Empower your staff with Cloud BI.
So get your head around the idea of the Cloud by calling Covali on +353 1 2939302 | +44 207 5588 029.
Posted by Paddy Moore on Wed, Jun 06, 2012 @ 04:21 PM
With the right presentation, your complex business data becomes meaningful and useful.
When we launched Q Series (with Q200 for Sage 200), we made a commitment to use the insights our customers provide to continuously improve the solution. Here is a preview of some of the new fetures we have built into Release 2...
Actual V Target
Let's face it, we all have targets to meet and beat.
Track performance against budgets and targets, with our new Summary Screen. Clear Charts, with auto highlighting of under / over performance.
Looks good on an iPad too!
Butterfly Charts
Butterfly charts (with auto highlighting) allow to analyze multiple KPIs at the same. Switch perspective with one click (Customer, Product, Sales Person etc.). Drill and zone in on the highlights and problem areas, all from one chart.
Instant Reports
You know the scenario. The meeting is about to start, you need some key figures to bring with you. Instant Reports allows you to build a custom report in seconds.
Simply pick the data and KPIs you want to see on the report, and it is instantly there. You can save reports for future use,
Switch between chart types with one click, to get the best view of your data.
Subscribe to our blog for future updates on QSeries releases.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Tue, Aug 02, 2011 @ 04:57 PM
We may be a QlikView partner, but we take an interest in Tableau.
Their Data Visualisation capabilities are some of the best in the business.
Tableau 6.1 has just been announced, and it is interesting to see that Apple iPad optimisation is included. It looks good, and knowing Tableau it will work well.
QlikView has a fully-enabled iPad and mobile capability, and it has been out for some time. Check our blog post from April for proof!
When you develop a QlikView App, you develop it once, it works in a Browser, on mobile, everywhere. There is no additional software, licencing or anything else, it just works!
I think the real message here is that Architecture matters. Qlikview and Tableau have truly flexible architectures under the hood. They can change their products more readily. Traditional BI 'Stack' Vendors are struggling to make their architectures respond to the pace of change, weighed down by the myriad of acquired products in their platforms.
Technology, Businesses and Customers are moving faster than a 3 to 4 year release cycle. But today, why can I still only see a video, or images of their mobile capabilities, and not live apps that I can explore on my iPad?
Today, iPad's for business are hot, even hotter for BI, they are the ideal form factor for mobile BI. Next year who knows what will happen? Qlikview's architecture ensures your BI can go wherever you need it to go.
To see Qlikview apps on your iPad, try the following Qlikview Sales Management or TV Finder demos.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Mon, Mar 21, 2011 @ 11:59 AM
With more than 18,000 customers and a 96% customer satisfaction rating, it’s obvious that business users love QlikView.* There are many reasons for this. One reason is the power of storytelling and QlikView’s role as a storytelling tool. You may be wondering what storytelling has to do with business intelligence. QlikTech expert advisor Elif Tutuk has some great thoughts about this. Here is her logic.
We rely on stories to put our ideas in context and give them meaning. It should be no surprise, then, that the human capacity for storytelling plays an important role in problem solving. So it follows that as technology aimed at solving business problems with the use of data, business intelligence software should help people visualize ideas using data, and should be flexible and fast enough to let people build their stories at the speed of thought―sort of like creating a storyboard.
This concept isn’t entirely new. In fact, in the book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright, the author makes the case that consciousness, language, and society developed an intimate relationship with the technologies of storytelling throughout the forty-thousand-year history of human society.
QlikView lets people create their own “data storyboard”
With QlikView, business users can create their own storyboard, telling the story they discovered in the data.
- QlikView gives them zero-wait analysis and user-centric interactivity. They can load data from any data source in minutes and start exploring it right away. Users can start their story anywhere: from the lowest level of data or the top. They can navigate into details to unfold the data in a way that engages them and lets them make their own discoveries.
- QlikView delivers an associative experience. They can ask any question, build a chart accordingly, and find the answer or identify a pattern that leads to another question. As they move along, pursuing the series of questions in their mind, they build charts displaying the answers in sequence―for the purpose of finding the unknown in the data.
Traditional BI doesn’t cut it as a storytelling platform
With the way that traditional BI technologies make data available to business users, it is not possible for users to visually tell a story with the data.
- Queries only give access to a limited set of the story’s details. Query-based solutions only make a portion of the data available at any one time, so the user only has limited visibility into the big picture. They can only tell an incomplete story, at best. This negatively influences users’ ability to formulate the next question, and the one after that.
- With OLAP, users can only tell a predetermined story. With OLAP-based technologies, users can analyze data only by using pre-determined, generic drill down paths so they have no chance of finding answers to the questions they come up with on the fly. They can only get answers to predetermined questions.
With QlikView, users can tell stories even when the end of the story is not yet known. Because they are not forced to analyze the data in a limited way, they do not use predefined drilldowns or static queries. They are in control of exploring and using their data without limits―and communicating the story the data is telling them. Perhaps this is part of the reason why people are so addicted to QlikView! (Have you seen the classic YouTube video about the QlikView addict?)
Please note that this blog was written and posted on 03/08/2011 07:27 by Erica Driver of QlikTech through QlikCommunity.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Mon, Sep 20, 2010 @ 06:27 AM
Business intelligence (BI) dashboards must be created fast, perform fast, and adapt fast to provide crucial information in a timely manner. Unfortunately, traditional dashboards are delivered slowly, perform slowly, and are implemented slowly because of the significant resources traditional BI vendors demand from the IT staff. The answer is a new kind of dashboard that comes with speed and is built around a new computing paradigm: in-memory, associative search that no longer locks data away but makes it accessible to all, including non-technical business users.
CITO Research recently published a white paper, sponsored by QlikTech, titled “Quick Answers from Faster Dashboards.” This paper explains how “living dashboards” empower business users. A living dashboard:
- Is a business intelligence dashboard that is always changing, evolving, and maturing
- Is implemented quickly and evolves iteratively, at the pace of business change
- Morphs at the guidance of users rather than IT
- Enables users to start their data exploration with a hunch and gain understanding by summarizing the data into aggregate metrics and charts
The white paper contains a graphic that I think is a useful depiction of how living dashboards lead to quick answers. Living dashboards close the loop, jumpstart innovation, propagate knowledge, and harvest low-hanging fruit.
QlikView certainly fits the bill as a tool for creating living dashboards. It can be implemented and modified quickly, which increases its power as a tool for jumpstarting innovation and propagating knowledge. In the recent BARC BI Survey 9, QlikView came out in the top two vendors, as measured by fast implementation time. In this study, QlikTech was among leaders in implementations within 3 months and had 85% of customers implemented within 6 months. And in a recent research brief titled, “QlikView Customers Outperform Best-in-Class with Dashboards,” Aberdeen Group found that QlikView users were on average able to drive a revision to dashboards from conception to completion in a single day, as opposed to an average of 3.5 days for all respondents.
To receive a copy of the report click here -white-paper-request
Posted by Noel Shannon on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 @ 04:58 AM
QlikTech today announced successful enterprise deployments of QlikView business intelligence software by VIP Parts, Tires & Service, the largest privately owned automotive aftermarket retail chain in New England. VIP’s business footprint spans wholesale, fleet and commercial divisions, as well as 56 retail stores. Using QlikView to integrate, analyze and search millions of transactions from operational and POS (Point of Sale) systems across locations, VIP moved from green-bar and spreadsheet reporting to real-time operational scorecards and holistic, multi-level views of business performance, improving management controls and response to business issues.
VIP recognized a need to embrace an enterprise-wide business intelligence system that could reach the furthest parts of its organization and bring data from multiple departments and sources together into a single solution. After an exhaustive search, VIP selected QlikView based on its ease of use, pre-integrated tools such as ETL (Extract, Transform and Load), and the ability to provide web-based access to data search, analysis and reporting throughout the company.
“Our CEO became one of the biggest fans of QlikView because it allowed him to drill down through corporate data right to the SKU level. District managers are thrilled to now have access to the same performance-based reports that they can share with store-level executives,” said Dan Grosz, the company’s VP of Information Systems.
VIP rolled out its first QlikView dashboards focusing on store operations in only a few weeks and achieved all its initial goals in just nine months, covering functional areas such as:
- Executive Analysis, increasing C-level visibility of operational KPIs by consolidating data from all parts of the company into a single QlikView
- Sales Analysis, leveraging POS data in new ways such as ranking sales by vehicle type down to SKU level
- Marketing Analysis, aligning merchandising and dealer services with customer purchasing patterns
- Operational Analysis, tracking store performance down to technician level
- Supply Chain Analysis, tracking inventory turns and Gross Margin Return on Investment (GMROI) down to SKU level (Prior to QlikView, calculating inventory turns was a slow, laborious process that limited calculations to only “buckets” of parts and tires. GMRO couldn’t even be calculated.)
- Payroll Analysis, consolidating payroll reporting and managing payroll performance from an enterprise view.
With QlikView, VIP drill down into detailed customer buying patterns and company performance across their wholesale and dealer businesses any way they want. Operational scorecards with data views matched to the specific needs of each end user provide the ability to set goals, quickly identify problems and track progress against them.
About VIP Parts, Tires & Service
VIP Parts, Tires & Service is New England’s largest privately held automotive parts and accessories chain. Based in Lewiston, Maine, VIP has 56 stores in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and a business footprint spanning retail, wholesale, fleet and commercial divisions. Since 1958, VIP has been the place where New Englanders turn for everything they need to keep their vehicles running at peak performance. VIP is staffed with ASE Certified technicians and counter personnel seven days a week and is the only New England resource for high quality, name-brand original equipment parts, tires and repair services. The company backs its prices with a 200% price guarantee and offers lifetime warranties on parts and labor
QlikPower is an implementation partner for QlikView. If you would like to find out how QlikPower can help you fill out the form here.