To effectively establish a data culture at an organisational level and remain competitive in today's business environment, organisations must open up access to the business intelligence (BI) tools.
So says Leon Wright, business group lead for the server and tools division at Microsoft SA, who notes that companies make decisions based upon facts and insights and within the BI space. The desired goal is to get as much insight from as many sources as possible.
"Firms need to keep everyone informed, empowered to make the best decisions and able to reach customers with the right information to improve overall customer experiences," says Wright.
According to Wright, the expansion of the data universe is occurring at an unprecedented level and pace, being fuelled by an ever-growing array of computers, Internet of things, gadgets and mobile smart devices.
Pew Research has released a report that predicts there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2025, equating to five devices for every person expected to be alive.
This amplification of data is changing the way in which companies do business, as organisations can no longer afford to only serve customers during standard business hours within a single time zone or geography, Wright says.
"The modern business needs to have its products and services continually available to clients through a series of operational measures ranging from Internet presence through to tracking complex worldwide operations for the highest efficiencies and customer satisfaction," he says.
Wright believes that the days are numbered for concepts like the maintenance window, during which a company's services might not be accessible for users (at lease over the Web), with IT departments using this opportunity to perform maintenance and system upgrades.
Consumers expect continuous service, whether they are at work or at home, and they are also looking out for access to information and personally tailored user experiences, he notes. "When a consumer is looking for a particular service or product and cannot access your businesses' Web site due to its systems being down, they will head elsewhere to have their needs met," he adds.
Beyond embracing back-end solutions that deliver smooth sailing for mission-critical services 24/7, 365 days a year, Wright says, organisations must opt for solutions that support complex data types and non-traditional data sources such as big data.
This will result in the benefits and advantages of a data-driven culture becoming accessible by many more firms. A recent IDC report revealed companies that embrace a data culture stand to realise a 60% return on their data assets, he reveals.
On this front, Wright says Microsoft is making Excel the BI tool for everyone, which means supercharging it for data of all sizes with data discovery (Power Query), analysis/models (Power Pivot) and visualisation capabilities (Power View, Power Map), while keeping the simplicity of the interface.
"Retraining isn't something users need to do when they use the BI capabilities and add-ins for Excel. Microsoft is also making BI more accessible with Power BI for Office 365, which takes BI capabilities to the cloud for collaboration (Power BI sites), mobile BI and new experiences."
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