"An organisation without Business Intelligence (BI) bears a striking resemblance to a ship without a rudder" according to leading BI industry guru Martin Butler. Paraphrased we can say a company that fails to forecast and monitor its sales, purchasing, production and human resources is on a collision course for business disaster particularly during challenging economic times.

Whether you're a small to medium size enterprise (SME) or a large corporate, the facility to highlight critical issues, best sellers, or monitor productivity levels are key components to business success. More than 80% of data in organisations is held in an unstructured format such as spreadsheets, emails, documents, web sites, and intranets. The huge amount of data that passes through individual companies is of limited value and is a wasted asset without a mechanism in place to capture and analyse the information.

Elegant Microweb UK provides a BI software solution known as ElegantJ BI (EJBI) and assists companies from a diverse range of industry sectors who recognise the need to have readily available accurate information. By having data presented in a succinct and creative way, management are able to make informed business decisions to maximise their business performance.

BI can benefit every company by integrating the following processes:

• Plan - What do we want to achieve? Planning provides the platform to set business goals, the strategies required to achieve those goals within defined Key Performance Indicators (KPI's).

• Monitor - How are we performing? Measure performance against set targets, efficiency of resources and processes.

• Analyse - Why are certain products/services performing well or not so well? Periodic analysis and updates provides an accurate picture of company performance, enabling you to easily identify critical issues or best sellers.

• Direct - What should we be doing? Exceptional reporting mechanisms and alerts provide information to keep on track or take direct action.

• Improve - How can we do it better? Optimise resources to maximise your business performance.

A well managed BI environment such as EJBI needn't be expensive and within a short period of time will provide an excellent return on investment providing the use and implementation is well managed. Many smaller companies are often without a dedicated IT Manager so it becomes even more essential to have a solution that is simple to use even for non IT users. There are a number of features that are worth considering when choosing your BI solution as outlined here.

Simple: A browser based, intuitive product will require little ongoing IT support and training, saving you time and money in the long run.

Practical: A good BI solution needs to be practical to use. With a solution such as Elegant JBI it's built with flexibility in mind ensuring it works alongside existing systems without the need for unnecessary disruption. Managers quite often need to display information visually in a graph,chart or report format in readiness for meetings and even presentations to their clients so having this available almost at the touch of a button becomes invaluable.

Affordable: With ever decreasing budgets every business is looking for competitive pricing without compromising on quality both with the initial investment and the ongoing maintenance and support. A web based product such as Elegant JBI has a Short implementation cycle, weeks rather than months which accelerates your return on investment.

Even within a SME there is a need for information and reporting mechanisms to be cohesive and uniform in presentation. It could be you work from a branch office or have other overseas offices, here the need to access and present information in a consistent way is essential for good communication throughout all sections of the business.

The majority of data held within a company is confidential information, particularly if it relates to revenue targets, cash flow or personnel records. This is where a security facility becomes essential, enabling you to authorise who can access particular information whether it be a particular group or individual by a simple integrated ‘tick box' facility.

A Business Intelligence solution that provides all of these essential functions stands a company in good stead for effective strategic planning and performance management taking them from strength to strength.

For more information please visit www.elegantmicroweb.co.uk [1]