Frequently Asked Questions
How can you help me?
We can help you more easily draw insight from your data in any area of the business. We help you improve operational performance and provide a greater level of business transparency and accountability in less time and with less money than you're spending now.
How are you different?
There are many business intelligence and data management software and services companies, but here’s what makes our approach to information and data management unique, delivering value in many ways:
- Business centric approach: Our business consultants have architected and implemented numerous complex and enterprise-wide business intelligence and information management projects. Possessing strong technical experience integrating QlikView with many and multiple data sources including data warehouses and most of the major ERP, CRM, POS and other operational data sources. This coupled with both strong industry and functional-based business process understanding equips our team to add value beyond a technical specification.
- Specialisation: We are business intelligence, information and data management specialists that use QlikView business intelligence and Microsoft SQL Server platforms to improve decision making within your organisation. Anyone can take a technology and profess to be an expert, the difference is in how our consultants guide business scoping, develop applications and integrate seamlessly within your existing environment. We launched QlikView in Australia in 2003 and are the most experienced end-to-end QlikView solutions provider that can help with both licensing and services.
We also concentrate on serving industries we know very well, offering clients considerable domain expertise as a result. We have strong information and data management experience working with medium and large organisations in the manufacturing, distribution, retail and pharmaceutical industries. We also have delivered key projects within the logistics, health, education, utilities, insurance and service sectors. - Results Based With Fast Time To Value: Our focus is on delivering results and tangible outcomes for our clients. Our methodology is based on an iterative design and delivery approach, that’s carefully project managed to deliver results and outputs within a few weeks. Our BI deployments are not services intensive, so they result in a better total cost of ownership, while shorter implementation times result in faster return on investment. Our experiences have allowed us to develop a number of pre-packaged business intelligence solutions to significantly expedite BI projects in areas like sales & margin, retail, finance, supply chain and for core systems like SAP, Lawson, JDE, BPCS and others. Most of our customers are live with their BI applications in 4 to 6 weeks and receiving payback soon after. Inside Info have an average project success rate of 98% compared to an industry average of 35% (IDC).
- Proven Track Record Delivering Value to Clients: We have a proven track record delivering end-to-end business intelligence and information management solutions that consistently exceed client expectations by being friendly, flexible, innovative and providing excellent value for money. We partner with our clients and as a result many work with us for years, with a large proportion of our work being repeat business from existing clients or via referrals from them. The results our customers experience speak for themselves - Amcor were selected as one of three finalists in 2009 Asia Pacific Gartner BI Excellence Awards for their use of Inside Info’s enterprise-wide profitability and supply chain dashboards.
- Strong Support Network: We have the ability to draw on a timely support network within and outside the company at short notice if and when required.
- Affordable: Aiming to reduce upfront and ongoing cost of BI ownership.
What kind of companies do you work with?
We work with medium and large organisations in Australia and New Zealand helping them to use and manage their information assets more wisely, to deliver insight from thousands of interactions across the business every day. We have strong information and data management experience in the manufacturing, distribution, retail and pharmaceutical industries. We also have delivered key projects within the logistics, health, education, utilities, insurance and service sectors. We work with businesses to deliver customer, sales, marketing, inventory, operational, supply chain, financial, management and other areas of analysis on demand in dashboards that are typically delivered within 4-6 weeks.
What type of support do you provide?
Inside Info is committed to resolve issues relating to your Inside Info deployment quickly and correctly. We provide easy and quick access to our consultants in case you have any issues with your installation, configuration or use of QlikView. Support is available via telephone 1300 768 110, email (support@insideinfo.com.au) and on-site support as required during Australian business hours nationally. Inside Info is also backed by the Microsoft and QlikView Global Support Centre for product issues operating twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
How is QlikView business intelligence software different?
Traditional BI approaches using OLAP cubes or formatted standard reporting typically require specialised technical resource to build applications taking months to deploy based on predefined report hierarchies. The problem with this is that businesses evolve over time as do analysis needs. So any change means you need to go back to square one, this isn’t the case with QlikView.
Key QlikView differences include:
- Value for Money - QlikView is not services intensive, so it results in a better total cost of ownership, while shorter implementation times result in faster return on investment. In fact IDC found QlikView’s total cost of ownership is 53% less than other BI solutions.*
- Fast time to value - Most customers are live in 4 to 6 weeks and receiving payback soon after.
- Easy to use - end users perform their own analysis and reporting with Google-like simplicity. Requires little or no training (< 30 mins). QlikView users report 54% less time accessing information and 51% less time analysing it so staff can focus on value-adding activity.*
- Powerful - Near instant response time on data volumes as high as a billion records across thousands of users
- Flexible - Allows unlimited dimensions and measures and can be modified in seconds. Significant improvement in IT productivity, reducing required IT support for BI by up to 90%*
- Integrated - Dashboards, analysis and reporting in a single solution and on a single architecture
- Proven - Over 15,000 companies worldwide, including over 500 in Australia, the majority of significant deployments through Inside Info. Gartner, IDC and Aberdeen Group cite QlikView as the leader in ease of use, fast query performance and delivering customer satisfaction from BI.
*IDC “Time to Value and ROI from BI: The QlikView Customer Experience, Oct 2009
Why build a Data Warehouse?
A Data Warehouse can turn your company's data into timely information, facilitate intelligent decision making and give your organisation a competitive edge. A good Data Warehouse can:
- Allow companies to build connections between the various disconnected islands of information
- Provide one-stop shopping for all decision support and ad-hoc reporting needs
- Provide a business view that simplifies end-user data access (masks underlying complexity of operational database structures)
- Offload reporting and decision support processing from operational systems and onto the data warehouse (improved performance and reduced contention with OLTP activities)
- Free-up IT resources for other (more complicated) development activities
Why do many Data Warehouses fail?
There are many reasons why Data Warehouse efforts fail. Here are some of the most common reasons:
- Lack of Business Sponsorship (Buy-in)
The "If you build it they will come" scenario doesn't usually work. - Tackling Too Much Too Soon
By the time the data warehousing concept gains wide acceptance (and budget approval), ideas start flowing and everybody wants their data right away. This usually leads to over-commitment, missed deadlines and cost over-runs. - Lack of DW expertise
Building a Data Warehouse requires an entirely different set of design and development expertise. - Poor DW design
Lack of data warehouse expertise usually leads to poor initial data warehouse database design - novice data warehouse development teams tend to create inflexible data warehouse models that are not conducive to change and/or the evolution of the Data Warehouse. - Lack of data integrity
Due to the complexity of managing and integrating multiple sets of source data, some data warehouse efforts wind up with incorrect and/or duplicate data. - Missed deadlines and cost over-runs
Novice data warehouse development teams tend to lack the expertise required to accurately estimate data warehouse efforts, they also tend to lack the problem-solving bag of tricks required to keep the data warehouse project on track. This usually results in missed deadlines, cost over-runs and erosion of end user confidence in the data warehouse team. - Lack of timely delivery of new information
Once the initial phase of the Data Warehouse has been rolled out, and assuming that it was successful, demand for additional information (new subject areas) grows exponentially. This causes data warehouse teams to delay and/or turn down requests, which results in disappointed end-users and the dreaded "too little, too late" scenario. - End-user analysis and reporting tools are too complex
Typical end-user Business Intelligence tools are overly complex for the infrequent and/or non-technically savvy end-user. A large segment of the end-user community often reverts back to the operational reports and/or delegates reporting requests back to IT. This unfortunately erodes one of the main benefits of building a Data Warehouse, which is empowering end-users and making them self-sufficient when it comes to decision support.
How do I ensure the success of my Data Warehouse?
- Secure a strong Business Sponsor
A strong business sponsor will help secure funding and will help synchronise the Data Warehouse evolution with future business requirement changes. - Under-commit and over-deliver for your first phase
The Data Warehouse team's credibility is at stake (especially during the initial phases of the Data Warehouse). Data warehouse teams need to give themselves sufficient elbow room... in order to make sure that the initial phases are delivered on time, on budget, and that data integrity is paramount. - Supplement your team with seasoned DW experts
For the initial phases of the Data Warehouse, and until the development team is fully versed in the data warehouse design and development activities, it is highly recommended that the internal design/development team is supplemented with 1 or 2 data warehouse experts. These experts will bring proven data warehouse design methodologies to the table, along with a substantial problem-solving bag of tricks, and will expedite the learning curve for the entire internal data warehouse design/development team. - Design your data warehouse for growth and constant change
The data warehouse database design is the foundation layer, on which future phases of the data warehouse are based - need to make sure that the foundation layer is flexible and robust enough to accommodate future data warehouse changes and the addition of new subject areas without having to undo or redo previously built data warehouse components. - Invest in a good ETL tool as part of your data warehouse
Custom coding data warehouse interfaces from scratch is both in-efficient and time consuming. ETL tools come pre-built with all the functionality one would need to develop even the more complex interfaces. Typical ETL tools will yield at a minimum 50% productivity improvement (i.e. at a minimum). You will be able to develop twice as many interfaces in the same timeframe. - Data integrity is paramount, since data integrity = end user confidence = data warehouse credibility
You need to audit the integrity of the data warehouse on an on-going basis, to ensure that any data integrity issues are identified, communicated to the end-user and rectified in a timely fashion. Lack of end-user confidence in the underlying data will usually spell the end of their use of the data warehouse, as they will revert back to their operational reports and their source systems for more accurate and reliable data. - Promote the constant growth of the data warehouse: a static data warehouse is a dead data warehouse
A data warehouse that does not keep up with the evolution of business and data requirements will be obsolete very quickly. Plan on at least 2 or 3 data warehouse releases in the course of the year - this will keep the information fresh, should enable you to meet end-user demand for new information in a timely fashion, and should keep the data warehouse users interest in the data warehouse high. - Involve the End-Users from start to finish
Business Users (especially power-users) are the data warehouse team's greatest allies: they will help direct the data warehouse evolution, they will help you promote the use of the data warehouse, and they will be the first line support much of the data and reporting questions.
What is Microsoft SQL Server?
Microsoft SQL Server is a database solution that provides powerful multi-user database performance for applications of any size. It provides a trusted, productive, and intelligent database platform that enables mission-critical applications, reduced time and cost of development.
How do I track KPI’s effectively?
Knowing your organisation's Key Performance or Success Factors (KPI's) is only half the battle. The other half is to actually monitor them and do something about them when they fall short of expectations.
- Identify desired targets for each KPI. These targets should be realistic and should be set at every level of the organisation, distributing the accountability for achieving these targets.
- Corporate data is then assessed against these targets on a regular basis, communicating to decision makers throughout the organisation the current state of these key success factors, and whether there is a need to intervene & deploy certain corrective measures.
- It is highly recommended that companies implement a daily executive dashboard that highlights the current state of these KPIs. (On Target, slightly Off Target, or way Off Target) so management can see daily if KPI’s fall short of expectations and can rectify quickly.
- Recognising that most decision makers are too busy to learn overly complex tools, the chosen KPI tracking tool/executive dashboard must be extremely easy to use, allowing even the least-technical user to be fully productive in assessing, analysing and acting on fluctuations in KPI values. The other key is to make sure that the one dashboard provides a consolidated view across the business in all areas deemed important.
