Business intelligence has long been a luxury for large businesses to grow larger. However, new BI technology is changing that. Self-service reporting automation is one of the most important evolution s of this technology because it makes BI reports far less labor intensive. By cutting initial and on-going labor costs, self-service reporting automation is making BI accessible to smaller businesses while helping larger businesses improve their workflow. Here are a few ways that self-service reporting automation can help reduce labor costs.
In the traditional BI work model, decision makers decide what reports they need, and then they pass work orders down to trained IT personnel. In IT, experts use their training and advanced, complicated tools to generate that report. Any time one person’s work depends on someone else to do a significant portion of the labor, the process becomes inefficient, slow, and time-consuming. In this case, both the decision maker and the IT personnel waste time. The decision maker has to wait to continue with a project until the necessary report arrives. The IT personnel must design their workday around frequent but unpredictable interruptions.
Essentially, a single report generated through this work model would eat up an hour for the decision maker along with an hour for the IT team. That means businesses would have to invest twice the time for a single product. Self-service automation reporting changes that. The software is simple to use, and it’s easy to automate regular reports. Even if a business decides to stick with the traditional BI work model, giving IT teams automated scheduling features can save more than enough in the way of labor dues to justify the investment.
Giving decision makers the tools they need to generate their own BI reports, goes beyond freeing IT employees. The report order may have to be put off in favor of technological emergencies or simply a bulk of available work. Then the finished report must be delivered back to the original decision maker. Depending on the size of the company, this could mean an entire series of extra steps in between. Extra steps mean extra time.
Self-service reporting automation software makes work easier for everyone. Regardless of whether a decision maker or an IT expert handles the software, programs like IntelliFront BI simplify report generation through a series of intuitively designed features. An easy access portal brings the most popular features to a single place. Users have access to easy, simplified tools that deliver all the power of traditional BI software without the complicated controls. IT professionals benefit from self-service reporting automation. Decision makers benefit from it, too.
Self-service reporting automation cuts down on unnecessary labor costs dramatically. It’s easier to use, and essentially anyone can learn to master it within a few days or weeks. Although its initial labor-saving features are great, BI software’s true value is always in its application. Save labor today as you begin to use your BI tools more efficiently. Save more tomorrow through the insights and strategies BI will help you develop.