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Insight from Data Reports

posted in: Finance

Ignore the power of data for making investment, business and e-commerce decisions at your own peril. The modern economy changes rapidly and there is increasing capacity to monitor these changes with system-generated data. Being at the cutting edge of investing requires, therefore, that you know how to use data effectively.

Smart investors use information tools proficiently, leaving technophobes and people lacking analytical capabilities behind. Unsurprisingly, business information systems has become one of the more popular MBA degrees.

Back-End Data Processing

Private cloud and virtualization technologies did not only improve the resiliency of company data centers, it also innovated data production. As organizations become more and more complex, their dependency on data and information technology experts also increases. Large investments are made to make use of data generated. Data mining ensures that all data are dug through and analysed to extract valuable information for smarter business decisions.

Before the information age, data mining was done manually by people collecting different data from various systems and filtering only the useful chunk into series of reports required by managers and CEOs. Today, data mining has evolved into business intelligence solutions that owners appreciate because of efficiency and cost effectiveness.

User-Friendly Reporting Systems

Business information systems close the gap between operational requirements and data consolidation. Their capacity to mine, extract, transform, and load massive amounts of data without requiring system disruptions supports business management. However, this is not the end of story for big data solutions. What happens after vital data are gathered?

Enterprise reporting must be established to effectively use processed data. In the past, reports were time intensive with respect to preparation and maintenance. Templates or pre-designed forms were used to highlight important points of data and functions. Some were customized and defined based on the users’ range preferences, while some would need to seek help from the IT department to begin or modify the content or settings of the report. Imagine how inefficient it was. On an average, it took them weeks to complete an enterprise report, delaying the company owners’ potential response.

Modern business intelligence solutions put an end to the hassles and difficulties of making a good enterprise report that could be used for corporate planning and other things, such as demonstrating socially responsible business practices. It makes enterprise reporting more accessible at the user level. With easy controls and user-friendly dashboards, creating a report becomes very simple. Data are dragged and dropped around the screen, visualization tools are comfortable to use, and content is easy to view and change. To top it all off, tools are available on demand, which makes data accurate and real time.

Strategic Analysis

Making effective use of data ultimately depends on navigating data reporting strategically. You need to know what to look for and be able to move quickly so as to get across the vast amount of material available.

Some of the information that can be useful in investment and business decision making are: industry statistical reports, company annual statements, custom business analysis using publicly available data, and internet site traffic reports. With a little imagination, you can quickly figure out what is happening with a given sector or enterprise. You can also do sophisticated analysis of your own business.