Archive for the ‘Business Intelligence’ Category

This is a guest post co-written by Carlos Lozano of ITS-Dynamics and Fernando Labastida of KPI Online

The Fashion Industry: Innovative by Necessity

The apparel industry is one of the oldest on the planet. The earliest possible sewing needles have been dated to about 40,000 years ago.

But despite its age, it is one of the most technologically advanced non-techie industries today. Why? Everybody’s trying to figure out how to invent a fashion industry crystal ball.  Read more... (957 words, 1 image, estimated 3:50 mins reading time)

Small Businesses are Sick of Spreadsheets

When Lotus 1-2-3 came out on January 26, 1983, it was one of the first spreadsheet’s to become hugely popular because of the great productivity gains businesses obtained from it.

Now spreadsheets have become a staple of everyday business life (with Microsoft Excel as the dominant spreadsheet), but more and more companies are discovering that in order to really see how their business is performing in a timely fashion, spreadsheets are a real pain.

That’s what I’ve been discovering over the last few months as I embarked on a quest to find out, from our customers’ mouths, what was it  that really made them decide to become customers of KPI Online.  Read more... (581 words, 1 image, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

What you don’t know will hurt you

Imagine you’re the owner of a successful wholesale company that’s been growing really fast. Large and small retailers are beating a path to your door to buy your product. Things are looking great. You’ve predicted sales are going to grow by 50%, so you plan purchases of your supplies accordingly.

All of a sudden, a year goes by, you don’t have any cash to pay next month’s payroll and your warehouse is full of unsold items. This situation apparently came out of left field. What happened? You didn’t realize that while sales were only growing 20%, your inventory was growing by 50%. You lost track of your numbers. A situation similar to this happened to a client of our friend Ken Kaufman of CFOWise.  Read more... (1713 words, 1 image, estimated 6:51 mins reading time)

Tracy Fabian, pre-sales engineer

Company Financial Health: Not Just Revenue And Expenses

In today’s economy, it is imperative that organizations track the financial status and health of their company.  It is not enough to only track cash or revenue coming into the company; you also need to track what is leaving the company.  Just as important, if you are an organization with inventory, you need to be able to tell quickly how much money you have tied up in inventory and what products are moving the quickest vs. what products are sitting on the shelves.  Read more... (436 words, 2 images, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

By Tracy Fabian, pre-sales engineer

Business Intelligence for Small and Medium Enterprises

In today’s marketplace, small and medium organizations are looking to deploy Business Intelligence (BI) applications in the most cost effective manner.  Software as a Service (Saas) provides a more cost effective solution than most BI fully licensed applications.

But before you implement any old BI SaaS application, make sure it’s comprehensive. It should allow you to monitor, analyze and act on your data.

All of these attributes should be available in one application.  Read more... (434 words, 3 images, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Source: iStockphoto

By Eduardo Carajal, special contributor

You could be bankrupt right now, and not even know it.

Many businesses find out whether they’re failing financially 6 months after the fact.

They operate for 6 months without taking any corrective action, either through ignorance or because of fear of shutting down an operation that has become their daily routine, a way to keep busy and escape idleness.

Whatever the reasons for ignoring this unfortunate situation, the more it is ignored, the larger the problem becomes, like a growing snowball rolling down a slope.  Read more... (381 words, 1 image, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Source: iStockPhoto

By Sergio Garza Govela, VP of Sales

Not to jump on the “let’s analyze why LucidEra went out of business” bandwagon again (well, yes actually). There have already been countless blog posts and articles by respected analysts and bloggers such as Trident Capital, their VC firm, David Raab, and Merv Adrian, to name a few, that have discussed the reasons.

Of course other Saas vendors, our competitors, have done the same.

But it brings up a question on the value that BI providers bring, and Saas BI providers in particular. Where’s the business value?  Read more... (781 words, 1 image, estimated 3:07 mins reading time)

BI coming to Main Street Source: iStock Photo

When Inc. Magazine starts talking about what Business Intelligence software is, you know BI is moving down from the ivory tower into main street.

I was very heartened to see the recent article, “A Business Intelligence Software Primer” by Michelle V. Rafter. An article after my own heart.

Rafter’s article gets to the main point behind what Business Intelligence software, and business applications in general, should be about: providing real business value to real businesses.

Here are my favorite parts of Rafter’s article:  Read more... (460 words, 1 image, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

In my last post, How Small Business Can Survive The Recession With Business Intelligence, I talked about how small companies, in general, can utilize business intelligence tools to help streamline their business and cut costs.

I know I was a little sparse on the details.

Fortunately we’re starting to see more bloggers, such as Ken Kaufman at the CFOWise blog, explaining the basic indicators that small businesses should measure in order to be successful.

I too will go into details here as to what immediate concrete steps YOU can take if you’re a small retailer, manufacturer or wholesaler, to tune-up your business during the recession using Business Intelligence tools.  Read more... (518 words, 1 image, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Business Intelligence for Small Business Source: iStockPhoto

Small businesses today are in survival mode.

That’s the stark conclusion from a recent blog post “Small-business optimism rises-but so does stress,” by Rieva Lesonsky. She cited a recent American Express OPEN® Small Business Monitor survey.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed said their focus for the next six months will be maintaining current sources of income; just 26 percent are focused on growth—the lowest number in the history of the Monitor survey.

How can you, as an entrepreneur, survive while maintaining current sources of income?  Read more... (730 words, 1 image, estimated 2:55 mins reading time)