Ronan GavinBI Solution LeadMicrosoft Ireland

Self Service BI for Finance

Some Useful Principles

EPG | MICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL

Key Opportunities for Finance

Agility = Competitive advantage

2

“By 2015 businesses that build a modern information management system will outperform their peers financially by 20 percent”

Top 20% Performing Org’sEmployees spend 1.2 Hrs per week searching for InfoBottom 30% Performing Org’sEmployees spend 6 Hrs per week searching for Info

Strategic Relevance

“We’ve reduced the time to produce accurate insights by over 50% with our Microsoft BI solution.”

Finance is spending a substantial portion of time influencing business strategy and operational priorities

Finance is more focused on ensuring current initiatives deliver results than on selecting/ aligning new initiatives

Agree

Disagree Don’t know/Not applicable

* “The Deciding Factor: Big Data & Decision Making” – Capgemini, Business Analytics | The way we see it

..And #1 Blocker to Achieving Expanded Insight

1 2 3 4 5 6 70%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

4% 4% 6% 4%

11% 12%

4%8% 14%

9%9%

85% 84% 93% 86% 84% 91% 89%

“The inability to access & analyze critical data, via exist-ing tools…”

85%

Of business users listed the inability to analyze data critical to their role, within their existing tools & processes, as the #1 obstacle to increasing insight

89%

of these users identify Excel as their primary analytic tool….

Business Insight: The key skills needed for Finance

Business Knowledge

Ability to Synthetize

Data Visualization

Storytelling

“People don’t want data, they want information & the goal is to tell stories” – Marc Reguera, WW EPG Finance Director, Microsoft