Opening up new business opportunities with data analytics
High-quality data received in near real time and stored in one central location is firmly at the top of the list of priorities of a modern business entity. Quality data delivered in timely manner enables vital business insights and speedy decision making, increases the efficiency of operations and, ultimately, provides competitive advantage by enabling companies to respond quickly to the changing environment. Our CEO Marijus Strončikas observes that an increasing number of companies operating in Lithuania are looking to implement such powerful analytical tools.
All the applications in one platform
According to Marijus, in the past businesses required significant investments in the implementation of analytical business solutions, data management and transformation. “Now it is possible for any company to afford it without incurring high costs. It is possible to start small and scale according to your needs, gradually integrating all the available data sources into a common platform”, – says M. Strončikas.
One such platform is Power BI from Microsoft. It allows you to easily process large data arrays, integrate, clean and update them automatically. This significantly improves the quality of information, introduces holistic data management and reduces manual processing.
How does this look like in practice? “For example, there is a company operating a nationwide network of sales outlets. Using Power BI based platform it is possible to access all the critical business information on daily basis from a single source: number of customers served, sales of good and services, and so on. Based on this data, the company can easily plan sales, stock levels, optimise and improve their strategy, decide on number of tactical issues” – says Marijus.
Employees also feel the benefit of enhanced analytics
Osvaldas Švitra, CEO of cargo GO Logistics UAB with extensive experience in logistics business, acknowledges that the digital transformation trends are changing the entire sector; therefore, all the companies must improve accordingly or risk falling behind.
“Increasing competition in the market drives the search for new solutions and automation of business processes. Those who invest in the right technology are being elevated into market leaders and gain strong competitive advantage. Improvement of processes by implementing the advanced technologies increases operational efficiency, creates added value, and supports distribution of important information among the business stakeholders, which is very important for making strategic decisions”, – says O. Švitra.
Speaking about the opportunities provided by Power BI platform, he notes that today managers of a company are able to see the results, trends, and impending problems of the company as a whole and individual units in real-time, regardless of physical location. Such a platform enables much faster growth, more efficient processing of large flows of information, facilitates the decision-making process, eliminates extensive manual processing work, and solves business challenges more efficiently.
Švitra notes that employees of the company are also involved in the digitization process. They are clearly seeing the changes themselves: there is less demand for mundane, manual, and low-value tasks that require lots of hours. “Therefore, we continue to follow the path of digitalization of business processes and implementation of projects and programmes to continuously improve our business, personnel, and financial management. We plan to automate as many processes as possible. The world is moving very fast, so your business must move even faster”, – is convinced O. Švitra.
Kęstutis Samajauskas, Chief Financial Officer of the company, emphasizes that in the transport and logistics sector, money is spent before it is received, therefore automation and digitization of business processes enables balancing financial flows and maintaining competitive position in the market. According to him, with the help of data platform and modern analytic tools, everyday data is obtained almost in real time. “No more separate Excel sheets, different programs, uncertainties, everything in one place and accessible at any time, here and now”, – says K. Samajauskas.
Faster than the market
Mr. Strončikas reminds that the major challenge most business entities are facing is the quality of data and speed of delivery/processing. According to him, many companies use 5 or 6 different information systems on average in their activities, including CRM, ERP, enterprise asset management, contact centre, digital channels and others. They are usually not fully integrated and operational data is summarised and loaded into data warehouse in batches, often with significant delay.
“Everything changes with the introduction of a unified data analytics platform. In particular, the operating results can be seen almost instantly. No more waiting for the beginning or middle of next month because you have the data available today. Linking data from different systems results in unprecedented new insights into business operations. Processes are run faster and more efficiently with probability of errors reduced to a minimum. Finally, the workload for employees who maintain and develop different systems is reduced by moving the analysis process to a powerful centralized system, so they can take on other activities”, – says Marijus.
According to Marijus, the unified platform provides the greatest benefits to the tope management and different units of the organisation. For instance, finance team gets a tool which enables them to analyse changes and trends in the key financial ratios, including, but not limited to changes in financial results, by company, lines of business, divisions, projects, customers, etc.
“With data analytic platform you can think further, advance your operations, build artificial intelligence solutions for your business, further expanding the ability to operate smarter and faster than the market”, emphasizes the CEO of Altic.
11 11 2021
