How can business intelligence help IT?

As more data is available to businesses, there is an increasing desire from management to use data to inform decision making. This in turn puts pressure on IT who have to create reports faster and at a greater capacity than before. It is no surprise that as many as 63% of CIOs see analytics as critical to their company.

Save time with business intelligence

Reporting takes time. You know it, management knows it, we know it. What however adds to the frustration is the miscommunication that can happen in the process.

As IT professionals are the ones doing the reporting, they know exactly what level of information they need to build the reports. Other departments don’t. They might ask for something that seems obvious to them, but does not satisfy the level of detail IT needs. Not to mention that different departments tend to use different jargon to talk about the same things. This can lead to confusion, wasted time creating the wrong reports and frustration.

Self-service business intelligence (BI) products like Phocas allow employees to create their own reports and drill down on precisely what they need. It is easy to use and understand, even for non-technical users. Not to mention that a good BI tool has plenty of training opportunities online, which means IT may not have to spend lots of time training employees on how to use the BI tool. Our customers report a 70% decrease in reporting requests, and a 300% increase in reporting speed when using Phocas. Imagine the time saved!

Manage access and permission

With self-service BI, IT may have concerns relating to the security of potentially sensitive data. Many CIOs rate the threat of data security as more severe than the threat posed by competitors to a business’ success. As companies are collecting more data, the need for appropriate security measures is growing.

BI does not have to increase the risk to business security. Phocas can easily be managed so that not everyone who uses the tool can access all company data. Employees can be given access to precisely the portion of data they need, significantly lowering the risk of data leaking and mitigating the impact of such a leak should it occur. This opportunity exists to access on all levels: set up, data sources, dashboards and more.

Helping the IT team

Actionable insights gained through Phocas are not only for other departments, but for IT too. You can analyze support desk performance and service handling times. In this way, the IT department can improve efficiency and performance, and in turn contribute to increased performance across the entire business. IT professionals using Phocas feel empowered and appreciated through the simple maintenance of their Phocas environment and by receiving positive feedback from across the business.