Business Intelligence (BI) systems are IT solutions designed to identify, extract, and analyze data within a company to support business decision-making. They help find ways to optimize operations, make predictions, identify issues, and monitor company performance. A BI system can answer important questions for a company, such as: Which products are the most profitable? Why do some customers leave for the competition? How can I optimize stock levels to minimize the risk of expired goods in the warehouse? When is the best time to reach out to customers for potential sales?
However, before having a BI system, you need to have the data for it to work with, which generally involves implementing an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. Any ERP system includes reporting tools, but the main focus of an ERP is to ensure transactional integrity within the system by enforcing business rules and maintaining database consistency. It’s also essential to differentiate between the reports an ERP can provide and the broader scope of a BI system.
ERP reporting primarily supports operational decision-making at the “micro” level, focused on day-to-day activities. BI, on the other hand, analyzes data over a longer period, identifying trends, correlations, and causations to answer questions posed by company management, which is responsible for “macro” level, strategic decisions.
For instance, at the end of the month, the sales department generates a report listing all customers with overdue invoices, used to notify those with outstanding balances. A BI system can do this and much more. For example, it can segment overdue customers by certain criteria: region, revenue size, purchased items, etc., helping create a profile of high-risk customers. Or, based on historical data, it can predict future outstanding balances, which may be seasonal or influenced by macroeconomic factors.
An essential consideration when evaluating the shift to a BI-based reporting system is speed. BI systems don’t use the production database for reporting but rather an optimized one, meaning that a report generated in the ERP system can be recreated in BI but will run at much higher speeds.
Besides ERP data, a BI system can also pull information from other applications or various files. Often, reporting requires aggregated data from multiple sources, and in this case, a BI implementation can save you significant effort, providing a truly comprehensive view of your business.
As an implementer of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system, Elian Solutions offers its clients two BI systems: Microsoft Power BI and Jet Reports, both optimized for Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Microsoft Power BI is a cloud-based reporting and analysis platform with an attractive, user-friendly interface, delivering relevant insights at minimal cost. Power BI is well-integrated with Dynamics Business Central, and reports built with Power BI are available directly within Business Central.
Power BI is Microsoft’s default and recommended BI solution when a BI system is needed for Dynamics Business Central.
Jet Reports is available in multiple versions, with the most powerful one featuring six pre-configured OLAP cubes, ready to use with Dynamics 365 Business Central in under a few hours.
Elian Solutions is part of the Bittnet Group, active for over 15 years as an implementer of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP system. With a team of over 70 employees and a portfolio of over 250 clients, Elian Solutions is one of the key Microsoft partners for ERP systems.
