San Jose, October 29, 2008 — When times get tough, smart companies know exactly where to cut and where to invest for the next recovery — because they make the most of business intelligence. In fact, many companies are already half way there without knowing it.
“Business intelligence lets you make lemonade while others get stuck with lemons,” said DataSelf CEO Joni Girardi. “It’s all about identifying, understanding and monitoring your key performance indicators.”
Though business intelligence has proven itself among large organizations, mid-size companies were slow to pick it up — until recently. DataSelf BI has led the way, offering top-tier features at a price and ease of use that suits non-technical users who work by themselves.
“What many mid-size companies may not realize,” Girardi continued, “is that their ERP and CRM systems already have the raw data they need.” All that’s left is designing KPIs to fit the business. Suddenly, ERP and CRM systems turn from a necessary evil into a source of critical data.
“I see managers get excited, and it really makes my day,” said Girardi. “They’re amazed at how easy it is to find critical trends with DataSelf BI.”
Earlier this year, for example, a food distributor faced a rising fuel bill and sinking volume. The pre-DataSelf system, said Girardi, would have given the firm’s decision maker little choice but to cut according to his intuition and spotty indicators. “They would have used the route map and total sales volume,” said Girardi, “but you just can’t tell much from blunt metrics.”
DataSelf BI gave managers the insight they needed. They chose from among DataSelf BI’s out-of-the-box KPIs and reports—which now total more than 1200—to find the ones that suited their business best. The distributor’s COO spent a morning customizing a few of them, and the picture took shape: with data piped straight from the ERP system, he could see in a minute each customer’s profitability; he could decide which ones to cut, save or renegotiate. They could also refocus their product portfolio and sales to maximize the profitability from their most important customers.
The tool’s ability to fit any environment explains why DataSelf BI works for so many mid-size businesses, said Girardi. It’s also why companies keep it as they grow: it adapts easily.
DataSelf BI provides an easy yet powerful means to report or “slice and dice” business data. Its main benefits:
- An intuitive and user-friendly reporting solution. On average, managers can tackle 70% or more of their reporting needs without IT support.
- A virtual “consultant in a box” provided by the rich package of over 1,200 reports and KPIs, a comprehensive data warehouse and several OLAP cubes.
- Quick deployment at a fraction of the cost of solutions from up-market BI vendors.
- All standard BI functions are included, including KPIs, dashboards, forecasting, budgeting, operational reporting, financial reporting, commissions, analytics, data mining, data warehousing, OLAP cubes, SQL mirroring, balanced scorecards and business activity monitoring.
- The solution comes preconfigured to work with popular mid-market applications such as Microsoft Dynamics, Sage Accpac, MAS 90, MAS 200, MAS 500, Sage PFW, Sage Pro, SalesLogix and Everest Software.
About DataSelf Corporation:
DataSelf provides user-friendly and high-end business intelligence (BI) solutions for mid-size organizations. Its headquarters are in the Silicon Valley.
DataSelf’s solutions have grown out of more than 10 years of experience providing best-practice, high-end reporting, data analysis and analytic solutions to mid-size organizations.
DataSelf simplifies and amplifies Microsoft’s BI solutions. DataSelf simplifies it by providing a comprehensive out-of-the-box solution to the most popular mid-market business applications, and by adding its own technology that eliminates most of the programming involved in typical Microsoft BI solutions. DataSelf amplifies MS BI by empowering each client with only the BI tools that they can benefit from the most, and by helping clients maximize their investment in BI as they become more sophisticated BI users.
Please visit www.dataself.com for more information.
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