Business reporting software is a useful tool to have when running a business. Benefits of installing business reporting software include:
- Improved usage of business resources such as personnel, equipment and real estate assets.
- Reduction in wastage of resources.
- Improved customer support.
- Identification of future business opportunities.
A number of different reporting software solutions are available.
Business reports are often generated by batch processes that typically happen overnight or at the end of a week or financial reporting time period. However, there is now a big requirement for business personnel to have access to near live or real-time business data. Such data is typically provided using dashboards to present the data in an attractive way. While real time business data reports can bring huge benefits, they can take a great deal of computing resources to deliver, especially for larger businesses.
Business reporting software can also look at different aspects of running a business. A particularly popular type of reporting software is the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) package. CRM is useful in companies that have sales teams and customers. CRM can revolutionise the way a company stores and analyses its customer data, leading to improved sales and customer retention. Microsoft Dynamics is one popular CRM system, but there are many other CRM vendors.
Datawarehousing and Data Analysis
A lot of company data is often held in databases. Consequently database analysis tools can be used to analyse the data held within the database. Two popular databases used by medium to larger businesses are Microsoft's SQL Server and Oracle's range of relational databases. Both Microsoft and Oracle provide reporting tools that can be used to do some sophisticated analysis of data held in their databases. SQL Reporting Services for SQL Server is usually bundled with SQL Server. A popular database data analysis application is Crystal Reports. This package has been around for a long time and there are a large number of software developers who know how to develop data solutions for Crystal. It's also possible to train up mid-ranking employees to do their own basic analysis using Crystal. Alternatively it's possible to generate custom reports in both SQL Server and Oracle using SQL (Structured Query Language) queries. SQL is fairly easy to learn, but to get the most out of it you normally need to use the services of a software or database developer or consultant.
Other popular data analysis software includes Business Objects.