Business Intelligence for Information Technology

Let’s put the large scale projects aside for a second and look at the day-to-day operations of the IT team within an organization.

You’re an IT manager and you’re tasked with maintaining data storage and security, which requires a strong handle on employee access and their equipment. You also have to ensure that the entire organization has the right programs and technology to meet their overall objectives, among other things. A BI platform can support many job functions; let’s look at the role of BI in IT.

If your IT team is continuously working on some of the following tasks, you may want to consider how a BI tool can help:
 

• Helpdesk and other employee requests
   
• Onboarding new employees
   
• Securely storing sensitive employee information
   
• Securely storing sensitive company information
   
• Data security, confidentiality and retention; keeping what is really only relevant to running the organization
   
• Budgets

How a BI Platform Can Help IT Teams

Imagine being given a set budget every year and having to allocate it across large scale projects as well as operational activities. Keep in mind that the latter occurs no matter what as they’re vital to the business’  and employees’ ongoing activities. 

This requires setting aside enough of your budget for the operational side, so the business can continue to perform without interruption. But you’ll also have to account for what is needed for any special projects scheduled for that year. How can you obtain all of the data and information in one place,  so it can be analyzed and managed for more proactive use?

This is where a Business Intelligence solution can help.

An ERP can manage the operational side of IT, but when it comes to procuring data there are limitations. A customizable tool like Business Intelligence for NetSuite is the ideal solution.

What are the Benefits of Business Intelligence for IT?

Business Intelligence solutions are built to act as one platform within your ERP like NetSuite for all of your organization’s data. A BI solution offers data visibility across operations, giving you a full overview of data sets from various data sources. This, in turn, allows your organization to implement the right strategies for moving forward.

Implementing a successful BI Solution for NetSuite is important to manage and respond to a business’ changing needs.

When it comes to IT, Business Intelligence for NetSuite is vital for data protection.

Data Security and Confidentiality

With a BI platform, your IT team can ensure all members of the organization have the access they need to effectively do their job. By setting up data permissions within the BI solution of choice, a user will only see data for which they’ve been granted access. This way, data sets are secure and remain confidential, if necessary. 

This also lets IT team leaders track their employees’ data usage and determine if they’ve been given the right access to effectively do their jobs. Again, this is another measure that helps leaders analyze current data for future costs and investment.

Data Storage and Historical Data Migration

Worried about your organization’s existing data structure and how implementing a BI solution will affect your current data warehouse? Don’t be. 

One of the main benefits of a business intelligence tool is how it can be integrated into your current ERP platform. It can then access various data sources, bringing them together with ease. This means eliminating different spreadsheets that previously tracked different projects and activities, and merging the data sets for simple visualization and comparison all in one place.

Data Visualization

In addition to managing financial data within NetSuite, a top business intelligence tool checks all the boxes for financial reporting. You’re probably wondering how this would help an IT team optimize their activities for efficiency.

Each year, as budgets are determined and allocated by the organization’s leadership, IT continues to vie for enough to cover their growing activities. By having the previous year’s financial numbers from various data sources, it can be analyzed, making a case for the integral part IT plays in the business’ activities.

Again, by building out a dashboard that’s customized for their needs, IT and leadership can view past budget usage and allocation. They can then make well-informed decisions on where to invest for future IT projects, equipment and resources.

This also assures leadership that their employees will have the necessary resources and technology to meet objectives in the coming year.

Getting Started: BI for IT

A business intelligence solution offers insight by manipulating various data sets of different sizes within a data warehouse. At first glance, this type of financial reporting doesn’t seem beneficial to an IT manager or team. But here’s why it actually is: past financial data is vital when it comes to planning and budgeting for projects. 

With so many organizations dependent on their technology and overcoming any limits it may bring, implementing a BI tool would guarantee they’re making the right choices and decisions.

Learn more about GURUS Business Intelligence here