What are the benefits?
Business Intelligence (BI) is an extremely effective way for business users, CIOs and other information consumers to quickly access the exact data they need in the way they want to see it. SFWs clients are continuously impressed by the business value created by using targeted, interactive dashboards. Well-designed dashboards enable information to be highly available, accessible and relevant to the business.
SFWs Business Intelligence strategy
SFWs Business Intelligence solutions are primarily driven by the powerful enterprise functionality of Microsoft SQL Server. SQL Server incorporates several mature, extremely functional tools for data integration and collation, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) cube creation, and the generation of versatile, rich reports.
SFWs BI solutions can be hosted either standalone or within a Microsoft SharePoint environment; consequently, all the benefits of SharePoint can be realised. For example, reports can be distributed without the need to manually circulate Excel files. In addition, it is quick and easy to restrict certain reports to authorised employees without the need for custom development.
A further benefit of using SharePoint in collaboration with Business Intelligence is the inclusion of Microsoft PerformancePoint. PerformancePoint is an enterprise reporting tool with the ability to create cutting-edge, interactive graphs and charts which truly bring data to users’ fingertips in a meaningful way.
An important consideration for many organisations is the ability to integrate with their most familiar data analysis tool, Microsoft Excel. SFW’s approach is to use PerformancePoint’s elegant integration capabilities which allow Excel charts to be imported into dashboards, and data from PerformancePoint reports can easily be exported into Excel for further analysis.