An IT expert has revealed what a powerful tool gives businesses new opportunities
High-quality, complete data received online and at one place is a dream of a business entity. They enable the necessary insights and decisions to be made without delay, increase the efficiency of operations and, ultimately, provide a competitive advantage by enabling them to respond quickly to a changing environment. Information Technology (IT) Expert Marijus Strončikas states that an increasing number of companies operating in Lithuania want to have this powerful analysis tool.
All systems in one place
According to the Specialist, in the past, businesses required significant investments in the implementation of business analytics solutions, data management and transformation. “Now it is possible for any company to afford it, even without extremely high costs. It is possible to start small and increase according to needs, gradually integrating all available data sources into the common system”, – says M. Strončikas, the Head of the Lithuanian and Swedish IT Services Group Altic.
This tool is a Power BI platform. It allows you to easily process large data arrays, integrate, clean and update them automatically. This significantly improves the quality of information, introduces systematic data management and eliminates manual labour costs.
What does this look like in practice? “For example, there is a company with a nationwide network of sales outlets. Using the Power BI platform, it sees all the results of each day in one place: how many customers came, how many goods were bought, how many and what services were purchased, and so on. Based on this data, they can easily plan sales, improve their strategy, decide on other areas”, – says the Expert.
Employees also feel benefit
Osvaldas Švitra, an Expert in the logistics sector and the CEO of UAB “cargoGO Logistics”, states that the prevailing digitalisation trends are changing the entire sector; therefore, organizations must improve in response to them.
“Increasing competition in the market encourages the search for new solutions and the digitization of processes. Those who invest in digital technology are rushing into leaders and gaining a strong competitive advantage. Improvement of processes by implementing the advanced technologies increases operational efficiency, creates added value, and spreads the dissemination of information, which is very important in making strategic decisions”, – says O. Švitra.
Speaking about the opportunities provided by the Power BI platform, he notes that today, managers of a company, wherever they are, see the results, trends, and impending problems of the company and individual units in real-time. This enables for much faster growth, more efficient processing of large flows of information, facilitates the decision-making process, eliminates technical work, and solves challenges more efficiently.
Švitra notes that employees of the company are also involved in the digitization process. They are clearly seeing the changes themselves: there are no longer a lot of technical, manual, and low-value tasks that require technical work. “Therefore, we continue to follow the path of digitalization of processes, implementation, and improvement of business, personnel, financial management, and other programs. We plan to digitize all possible processes. The world is moving very fast, so business must move even faster”, – O. Švitra is convinced.
Kęstutis Samajauskas, the Chief Financial Officer of the Company, emphasizes that in the transport and logistics sector, money is spent earlier than it is received, therefore the automation and digitization of processes allows ensuring fair financial flows and maintain competitiveness in the market. According to him, with the help of Power BI it is possible to do this, everyday data is obtained “online”. “No separate “excels”, different programs, uncertainties, everything in one place at any time, quickly, here and now”, – says K. Samajauskas.
Faster than the market
Strončikas reminds that the major challenge for most business entities is the quality of activity data, its timeliness and speed of receipt. According to him, so far many companies use 5 or 6 different information systems in their activities. They are usually operated by individuals, and some systems provide final activity data at the beginning or middle of the next month instead of the current one.
“Everything changes with the introduction of a unified data analytics system. In particular, the results can be seen online. No more waiting for the beginning or middle of next month because you have the data today. Linking data from different systems results in unprecedented activity cuts, new insights into results. Processes are faster and more accurate, and the probability of errors is reduced to a minimum. Finally, the workload for employees who maintain and develop different systems is reduced by moving the analysis process to a powerful centralized system, so they can take on other activities”, – says the IT Specialist.
According to the Expert, the unified platform provides the greatest benefits to the Head of the Company, Heads of Departments and the Finance Department. People working in the latter get a tool that enables them to analyse changes and trends in key financial ratios. For example, changes in reporting results, results of different companies, activities, divisions, projects, customers, and etc.
“With Power BI, you can think of further, advanced steps, such as integrating artificial intelligence into your business, further expanding the ability of your company to operate smarter and faster than the market”, emphasizes the CEO of Altic.
11 11 2021
