How to create a fast and effective business model

Creating a business model is sometimes harder than it seems. It involves pursuing new ventures and trying to use the business and financial strength you already posses. This way you can save time and money.

Deciding on a new business idea is a process that involves leaders from all departments, but going further, it will require creating a business model that will survive the new economy. Generating debates about how to approach the new market or what type of customers to serve will help the managing team decide if the new business model can be implemented.

But many times this kind of debates will drift of and one of the most important part of the equation will be left behind: the human part – the customer. Without asking for your customers’ opinion, a business idea could look good on paper but never pan out in real life.

This is why it’s so important to create a business model that could be tested before you put it in practice on a larger scale. And considering that time is a valued aspect of the business life, I can show you how to create a business model fast, with these key elements at its center:

• the main idea – the business idea from which you start the business model. It may be something as small as a single phrase, or you could write a detailed version on 20 pages or so.
• the targeted users/consumers/customers – list your targets. Is this business idea developed for consumers, users or other businesses? Create a list of places where your business idea can be tested on a small number of test subjects.
• the proposition – decide what will be the key factor (aspect) of your new business model. Write it as a proposition so you can use it as a base for future sponsored campaigns.
• the solution – detail what is the most important feature of your new business plan and how it will be perceived as a solution by the user/customer
• the channels used – create a graphic that will contain a list of channels used by the new business model. Will you be selling door to door? Will you deliver the products or will you have a store? Use a business reporting software or a reports engine to get the job done fast and easy.
• the budget and revenue – delivering a budget plan along with your business model can prove a very efficient way to save time. You only need a specialized accountant that can add the costs of this new endeavor and see how long it will take before it will become profitable.
• the business key or advantage – Every new business model should have an advantage over the existing business models on the market. It’s the key element that makes your business different from others like it, the thing that separates your idea from the old ones.

Following these key elements, your business model will prove to be very accurate and you can use it from day one in various market simulations.

Types of business reports

In business, gathering important information about a subject can be a very challenging task for many who undertake it. An even more difficult task could be the interpretation of these information bulks. So here is where business reporting comes in.

Collecting facts and interpreting data has become even more easy to do after the online or downloadable tools became available to the large public. Now, any small company can benefit from accurate reporting tools, that will ease the reporting process and even offer solution to your company’s problems.

Special business etiquette: mail and reporting

Professionalism is a known business characteristic. We tend to prefer a company with high communication standards and with a quick response time, because this way we feel valued as customers or business partners. Developing a decent business etiquette is a quintessential step in managing a company.
And when it comes to business email and mail, the importance of etiquette should be number one for every business owner. Letters and messages reflect professionalism and could help you in the long run in maintaining a business relationship with every company you talk to.

NextReports – the future of Business Intelligence reporting tools

Any respectable company knows the advantages of having a great business intelligence management. For this, in recent years, reporting tools have been developed more and more in order to offer visual reporting systems as well as manage large amounts of data.

Embeddable BI solutions

Business Intelligence has become a very important process in every company and organization. Lately, we’ve noticed an insatiable demand for data visualizations and analytics. SaaS has started to gain an advantage lately and some vendors say that Software as a Service (SaaS) is the future of software management and not just the future of Business Intelligence Tools. While companies require data-driven applications from their IT department, they’re also expecting offers from vendors. They want the same kind of analytical support embedded in their products. They want dashboards, reporting tool and interactive visualizations embedded in their products. These are market requirements in most of the software segments.
I am not a fan of embeddable BI, but I am a fan of every successful BI campaign. We all know that pursuing Business Intelligence and using it the right way is the right thing to do. But when you start developing a business plan, you must take everything into consideration. There are some benefits of using an embeddable BI approach.
In-house BI may seem to offer great benefits and sometimes it does, but it can also drain a business’ resources. Not being tied up to a vendor is a luxury desired by every company, but as I have already stated, it may come with an issue. You should clarify a few things before you take the decision of bringing in-house BI. You must take into account your business’ needs and its availability.
Before bringing in-house BI, every company should take into account the possibility of using embedded BI Tools. Here are 5 benefits of this option:
1.   Quick Value:
Customers are rarely patient. When it comes to results and delivery of functionality, they want the basic required features. It is the same with data visualization. Even if there are lots of tools which do their job great and can be used in lots of ways, clients want it simple. This is why they prefer basic dashboards and reports (the ones that can be created with a reporting tool). This is advanced interactive analytics for them and they want simple reports. And if you’re not delivering them, well, competitors might do it.
2.   Reduced Costs:
There are always hidden costs. When you are investing money, even if it is in renovating your house, there are always hidden costs. It is the same when you start to develop software applications from scratch. In a company, when it comes down to software development, the first thing you should think about is the maintenance costs. When you develop something, you have the obligation of hiring support staff. Vendors continuously develop tools and always update the old ones. But they have specialized staff to do that for them.
3.   Making your deadlines:
Deadlines always affect the development decision. It is essential to capture and maintain a competitive advantage by making your deadlines. If you chose to develop software applications from scratch, then you will add immediate value to your products. But you can also reduce the time it takes for your product to hit the market by embedding third party business intelligence technology.

4.   Focus on core competency:
The professionalism of a company can be observed by how they treat business processes. BI vendors are good at what they do because this is the only thing they do. They specialize on BI or sometimes even on certain BI tools. Your team may be good at what it does, but let them focus on their primary tasks. If you’ll ask them to be proficient in other  domains, besides their specialization, this may become a distraction for them. And distractions will make you lose money.
5.   Agility:
Your team must be fast and agile. Even if you team already knows what your customers want to hear, see and use when it comes to data visualization, they still have to provide a “back-up plan”. Dashboards and reporting tools may be enough for customers, but your team must be prepared in case that customers want to see more in-depth data. They must be agile and have multiple solutions prepared.

Big Data – Have we forgotten about reporting tools?

We live in a world where information is everything. Only those who have the information and  the ability to process it fast will succeed in the competitive business environment. For a long time, business intelligence was either a trump card, or the process that made a difference in the world of business.
Nowadays, it is still considered a necessary “tool” without which most companies would fail. The BI tools and processes have the ability to bring companies on top – when they are used right. But even when the BI process is wrongfully implemented (or partially wrongfully implemented), it can still maintain a company on float. BI’s only downside i its own poor usage, or the absence of true “business intelligence”.
Business Intelligence, as the definition states, is a term which sums up all the processes, personnel and tools used in decision making. The BI tools are different from vendor to vendor – unless they have collaborated in the development of software applications. The list of business intelligence tools may be long, but the most commonly found ones are: spreadsheets, dashboards, reporting tools, reporting software, designers, OLAP, data-mining, etc. Spreadsheets are the most common BI tools in my opinion. They are often used in simple storage, mostly on a PC hard drive, and lately on cloud servers. Dashboards are “the main facet” of the BI tools. The dashboard is used mostly for reading results and sometimes modifying them. Reporting tools and reporting software applications are tools which create reports from databases, data warehouses, data marts, data sets and every other storage facility that has the term “data” in its name and describes a storage device. Reporting tools and reporting software applications analyze data and information and create human readable reports. They are mostly used for historical data and even if some are able to accomplish this task, they are rarely used for predictive analysis. The only inconvenience in my opinion is that these tools can hardly create reports from non-structured or semi-structured data sets. But it’s something that they are working on, I’m sure. OLAP and data-mining are the BI tools which unify Business Intelligence and Business Analytics. These BI tools are the closest ones to proficiency and predictive analysis.
And this is where someone, I don’t know who or why, draw a line between BI and Analytics. Analytics is about raw, big data, scary, unstructured data analysis. Big Data means information, right? And it’s true: it is all about information, and a lot of it. It can be used, but hardly correctly analyzed. This is why I now want to talk about the “7 deadly sins of Big Data users” as Josh Williams, president and chief science officer of Kontagent, named them.
Most of these are considered “sins” because unlike BI, Big Data requires technical personnel. So here are The 7 deadly sins of Big Data:

1. Sloth: Lazy Data Collection. It’s all about data collection and the skills involved in data-collection. If they are bad, then this data won’t help the organization.

2. Negligence: Misapplied Analysis. The data must be analyzed thoroughly. Any analytical errors made can result in some wrong conclusion. Furthermore, if the reports are not readable or easy-to-understand, then all the work is for nothing.

3. Gluttony: Way too many reports! Many reports means lots of work. This in return will make it easy to miss something important.

4. Polemics: Data definition, User disagreements. Too many reports created by different users with different points of view could create disagreements. Disagreements could also be caused by different POVs on a single report.

5. Imprudence: Easy to jump to conclusions. Big Data being, as the name says, big data, can make a company rush in with decisions and make bad calls if the data is not analyzed thoroughly.

6. Pride: Decision Driven Data Making. This one is a common sin: “Data wins arguments”, Williams said. It is often required to dig through data to confirm notions which are preconceived.

7. Learning and acting slowly.  Being a technical process, Big Data requires training and technical knowledge. Besides that, fast reaction is critical.

I think it is best to agree that Big Data is not for everyone, at least not yet. I know, everyone wants to be up-front and to be ahead of the competition, but rushing onto a path that you don’t know might bring you on the verge of a cliff.
My father used to say: “The shortest way is the one you know”. Well, I know how to use a reporting tool, I have the data, and I will do what I know best. I must admit, I also use Big Data and Analytics, but mostly “in tests”. I am still walking on the familiar BI path, but in the same time I am trying to make some sense of the “Big Data path”. I know that everyone still uses reporting tools and I still believe that decision-driven data making business plans are still the way to go. And about Discovering the secrets behind Big Data – “Let the race begin”. (I have always wanted to say that!)

Business Intelligence 101 – Reporting tools

The concept of Business Intelligence has been around for a number of years.  And the reporting tools are an intricate part of the BI process. They provide functionality ranging from developer-only libraries that help organize relational data to visual report designers to web-based ad hoc querying applications targeted at business users.

And during the past years, some of these business intelligence packages evolved to a point where an enterprise can reasonably select an efficient and often cheap reporting tool to be deployed throughout the organization.

Nowadays, there are many well-built reporting tools available for free or in the form of an open source document. And that means that companies have a wide array of business intelligence tools to choose from. And sometimes even the cheap or inexpensive business intelligence packages provide hard core corporate features such as multiple user support, integration with existing security mechanisms, ad hoc visual reporting tools or scheduling facilities.

Understanding the importance of reporting tools and reporting software:

The amount of data that an organization handles each year grows exponentially as their business expands. This means that the number of users who require access to this data in the form of reports grows as well. And the complexity of the reports is also increasing. Employees and managers at all levels demand access to real time information on which to make business-critical decisions.

It is therefore critical that each organization takes great care when choosing their reporting software and their development provider or vendor. Each company must make sure that the software development provider has an excellent track record in developing software applications. Also, they must clearly comprehend the present and future reporting needs of their company. Costs and maintenance are also factors which could affect this decision. Some reporting software are available in open source form. This means that they can be modified within the company requirements, but this process will require the help of an in-house computer programmer. Some reporting software applications are available for free, but the maintenance will cost. And in some cases, maintenance may cost more than the software itself. Some vendors offer the reporting software and maintenance for free, but have other tools and services that require a fee. These are all to be considered when choosing a reporting software and a vendor. Today we are going to talk about one of these reporting software developer vendors:

A very interesting approach to business intelligence comes from a fairly small vendor – the developer’s name is NextReports. NextReports is offering their customers three distinct tools: NextReports Designer, NextReports Engine and NextReports Server. Let’s talk a little about each one and check out the offered features:

NextReports Designer is an application able to design in-grid reports using a connection to some of the most popular databases like Oracle, MySql, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird and Derby. It has an intuitive interface that makes report creation a quick and easy task. Using NextReports Designer you can design or create your own SQL, create reports from stored procedures and export data to various formats. And these are just the top of the iceberg. By employing unique features, like in-spreadsheet design, Next Reports Designer aims to speed up the reporting tasks. And every business owner knows the importance of real-time reporting: the fresher the information is, the more useful it is for the company’s needs. The decision-making process should be based on fresh information in order for the company to develop a pro-active business strategy.

NextReports Engine is a lightweight Java platform development library which can be used to run NextReports inside your application. This library is very easy to use: the reports can be integrated with just a few lines of code. And what’s even better is the fact that business developers, value added resellers and ISVs can embed the Reporting Engine into their applications free of charge.

NextReports Server allows scheduling NextReports and Jasper Reports and automatically delivering them via e-mail, FTP, SSH, etc, in all sorts of formats like HTML, EXCEL, PDF, RTF, CSV, TSV, TXT or XML. Featuring a fast and efficient web interface, NextReports Server makes use of advanced Web 2.0/Ajax technologies to provide speed and ease of use normally experienced in desktop applications. Also, NextReports Server is able to show your charts, table reports and alarm reports in real time inside dashboards.

But what is really interesting when it comes to the NextReports business intelligence package is the fact that they are offering the reporting software applications for free and the only one which requires a fee is the NextReports Server. And the latter itself is quite cheap considering its usability.

In conclusion:

Business Intelligence reporting tools have made great strides during the last years and they will no doubt continue to get stronger even in the future.  This is mostly due to the fact that in an increasingly competitive marketplace, organizations need to ensure they stay ahead of their competition. And meaningful, timely, intelligent reports and reporting tools can provide every company with the information needed to make the most inspired business-critical decisions. So when it comes to the business intelligence client, whether it’s about greater data integration abilities or a better user interface, be sure to pick the reporting tool according to your business’s needs. Today we’ve presented you with one option. Choose smartly!

Free Business Intelligence – The last BI trend

A decade ago, Business Intelligence solutions and Business Intelligence tools consisted of mammoth systems structured at organizational level. Who would have thought back then that Business Intelligence applications would become so accessible one day, especially considering the fact that Business Intelligence Solutions offer a strong competitive advantage for organizations. Nowadays, Business Intelligence tools are designed for masses, for every company that wants to stay in business or to get ahead. The scale of history and evolution shows us that it would’ve happen one day, but no one thought that it would’ve happen in such a short amount of time -10 years. I certainly wouldn’t!
The development of Web technologies that enable rendering of graphs with data sets has brought data visualization to a point where it is the most important process in Business Intelligence. Technologies such as Java and Flash can do that, moreover, they facilitate the “propagation” of these reports and graphs through specific online sharing communities.
What is everyone looking for on the world wide web? The answer is: information. Therefore, these tools which allow visualization and analysis of public information are available for free on the web so that the level of understanding and creative interpretation will improve far more. Access to data and the ability to analyze and interpret that information has started to be considered, in lack of a better word, democratic.
There are lots of business intelligence vendors on the market, but today I will be talking only about those who have adapted to the market and started to develop their business around the “Free Business Intelligence” trend.
So here they are, the “top dogs”:
Being one of the most important players on the market, Google could not miss from this list. This is why Google comes in with Google Chart Tools, an API resulted in Google Code. However, this is not exactly user friendly for the end user because it requires some programming knowledge and is strictly limited to public data sources.
Another interesting player is Many Eyes, part of the IBM initiative called “Collaborative User Experience”, which provides a Java interface, based on public data sets, which can lead to innovative views. These views can be inserted into web pages by simply copying the automatically generated code or image results.
Indicee suggests a more complex service and, above a certain limit of use, it is not free. Founded in 2006 in Vancouver, Indicee aims to become an exclusive online service. Indicee allows uploading sets of data, datamart creation and, based on the aforementioned, uploading reports. Although the user provides a web interface relatively easy to use, the steps that the application require to be made may be a disconcerting reason for those who are less familiar with the relationship between raw data, datamart and reports.
One of the most interesting approaches came from the American Software company Tableau. This company has revolutionized the industry and, because we like to keep a close eye on them, we have noticed an increase of their sales even during the economic crisis. Their approach is typical of a company whose shareholders are to be found among the founders of Adobe Systems: Practically, they have identified the line where the application can be offered for free or in exchange of a fee. They have also identified the motivational factor to tempt users to switch from “free” to “paid” – publication of the public space. Public Tableau is a full-client version, which allows usage of all facilities of the product. But the difference appears in saving documents – it is a portal of the board software and visible in public. If the user wants to keep these results only for himself or his company, then he must opt for the paid version. However, the user can use any data from Access files, Excel or text, as long as the public display of the results is acceptable to him.
Another interesting approach comes from a fairly small vendor – and that is NextReports. At this time, they have only three tools available: NextReports Designer, NextReports Engine and NextReports Server. NextReports Designer is an application able to design in-grid reports, using connections to most popular databases like Oracle, MySql, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird and Derby. NextReports Designer has an intuitive interface that makes report creation a quick and easy task. NextReports Engine is a lightweight Java platform development library which can be used to run NextReports inside your applications. This library is very easy to use: the reports can be integrated with just a few lines of code. NextReports Server allows you to schedule NextReports and Jasper reports and to automatically deliver reports via E-mail, FTP, SSH, Windows Share, WebDAV in most popular file formats (HTML, EXCEL, PDF, etc.) or in real time dashboards. What is interesting in their approach is that they are offering the reporting tool and the reports designer for free and the only one which requires a fee is NextReports Server – moreover, the fee is pretty small considering what you get for that price.
In conclusion: The days of the classic Business Intelligence concept are almost over. Business Intelligence has been in a continuous developing over the last 10 years and somehow, in this expansion and evolution, it has managed to spread its “tentacles” over many other departments – and this had a big impact! What we now perceive as Business Intelligence is far off from the rigid, expensive, clumsy pack of software that was sold for big bucks only 10 years ago. Nowadays, Business Intelligence consists of truly smart, versatile applications, many times available for free. But one thing has remained the same:  Business Intelligence is still the key to the success of any business, but nowadays, every company can benefit from this advantage.

Choose the right tools for your business intelligence plan

A decade ago, only the smart ones or those who had rich resources could maintain their business profitable. The smart ones were investing ideas and energy into strategies to keep their business profitable. Those who had rich resources available were also investing time and energy, but their resources were their main trump card. And that trump card was called Business Intelligence. As we already know, business intelligence is a term which sums up all the processes, tools and staff used in decision making. At that time, business intelligence was affordable only for the major companies. The BI tools were sold in large packages which were both expensive and complicated to use.
But during recent years, vendors and developers started to provide tools for companies of all kind. This has granted small companies the opportunity to afford the programs and software applications which were required to accomplish their targets and even more. Those huge packages were divided into several software applications according to their type, process and usability – spreadsheet, reporting software, data-mining, OLAP, database, data warehouse, dashboard, server, etc.
But even if vendors would have offered everyone access to the software they needed to achieve their goals, some companies still wouldn’t know how to use these tools or which tools to choose to accomplish maximum productivity and profit.
And let’s be clear on something: an error in choosing the right tool will cost you! Sometimes, damage control can reduce losses, but usually the wrong tools will bring a company on the verge of bankruptcy.
This is why in this article I will be talking about how to choose a business intelligence tool:

Business Requirements
There are several programs, software applications and systems which are generally used in companies. Operating Systems (OS) are one of the software applications which are absolutely required in every company. Without them a computer cannot be used. So you can start with the OSs and the tools which you already have, and you can develop a business requirements plan which will include all the other tools that you might need for your business to flourish. If some of the required tools aren’t compatible with the systems or the other tools you already have, you should opt for other tools and systems which are compatible amongst each other in a way that will truly help your company and, in the same time, will require smaller investments. E.g. If you already have a database which uses files with extensions that cannot be processed by your reporting software, then you must find a different reporting software. Another option would be to get yourself a database that has the ability of storing the compatible file extensions that are required. When you try to identify the systems and tools that you might need, it is helpful to make a list with questions and answers about your business. Ask yourself those questions and the answers will help you take the right decision in choosing the best tools.

Staff awareness
When you purchase any tools and softwares, you must be aware of your staff’s capabilities, needs and usability. Having “the right person at the right time using the right tool” is one of your targets for meeting the optimal business requirements. Also, don’t hesitate to consult your staff about the new changes and make sure they are on board with the new plan. You may have the right staff, but lack the tools, or the other way around.

Third party suppliers
As I already said, a few years ago there were only a handful of developers, vendors and suppliers, but nowadays the market is full of them. Some may offer full packages of tools that you need, but at a very steep price. Others may offer only part of the tools required for your business’s needs. Think well and hard before choosing your vendor or vendors. Often, smaller and/or third party suppliers might bring you better offers than the major suppliers. Even if big brand names usually come up with quality products, the third party suppliers may still offer you quality, but at lower prices. E.g. Reporting software applications are some of the tools which are provided by small and third party suppliers at low costs or even for free, while major suppliers might offer them only as a bonus when purchasing many other tools.

Business Intelligence trends
Business Intelligence, as all other domains, has developed several evolutionary trends. An in house computer programmer might provide you with free resources and maybe even some open source ones. You don’t need a whole department for this. Social networks and  mobile computing are also trends developed during the last years. The trick is to watch out for future trends, to identify them and use them before others. This strategy will bring your company many opportunities for success.

What should we expect from business intelligence in the years to come?

A decade ago, Business Intelligence or BI was available only for a handful of organizations – their size and budget being what granted them the possibility to invest in BI. But with passing time, BI has become available for every company that wants to make a difference and to get a leg up in front of their competition. Nowadays, a company can choose the business intelligence tools, strategies and personnel that best fit their needs. Nonetheless, Business Intelligence is part of every company, one way or another. While in the past it was a “strategy that would make a difference”, today it is a strategy “without which a company would die”. The question is: “What should we expect from business intelligence in the years to come?”
In my opinion, there are three important points to check in “the future agenda”: open source business intelligence, mobile business intelligence and predictive business intelligence.
Open source business intelligence.
Open source means that you have access to a product’s design and implementation details. It’s what happens when a vendor or developer who has copyrights for a product – program or software application – but chooses to give it for free for public use.
In the last few years, business intelligence with its tools and strategies has developed continuously. When we talk about open source and business intelligence together, what we are interested in are mainly the business intelligence tools. Business analysts predicted that business intelligence will transition to open source. The truth is that you don’t have to be a specialist to see where business intelligence is heading. Tools like spreadsheets, dashboards and reporting software applications are now being provided for free. And these are not the only tools which are given away for free. Packages that contain a set of tools for free and a few paid tools have been developed and they gain wil popularity amongst BI clients. Some vendors might even give them for free for everyone who wants to use them. Sometimes, clients are not even obliged to purchase any of the paid tools.
Giving away so many products for free makes me think that this trend is going toward open source. I believe that from giving away products for free, there is only one single step to open source business intelligence.
But if business intelligence will become open source, this doesn’t mean that it will be free! It will be cheaper, but it won’t be for free. Support and maintenance will always cost money. What will make it cheaper is that the products themselves will be available for free and beyond that you will be able to modify them as you see fit in order to match your company’s needs.
Mobile Business Intelligence.
Going mobile is another trend of Business Intelligence. Lots of people think that going mobile is the future of BI. I am not saying that it’s not true, but I think that it’s not going to happen in the close future. Mobile technology and mobile computing has developed a lot in the last few years.
Nowadays, there are millions of tablet and smartphone users in the world. The rapid technology development and the quick user adoption rate are two characteristics that show us that mobile is already an important part of the BI implementation process.
Gathering data from the mobile users has become an important task on every company’s agenda. This is partly due to the huge number of users and the significant amount of time spent online by the average mobile user. This international trend has not gone unnoticed by business owners! They have realized that this it is an important part of gathering data about users, trends, preferences, etc.
The increasing number of customers and the possibility of gathering precious data through mobile business intelligence is not the only reason for mobile implementation to be considered the future of BI. On-the-go technology is also helpful for business managers, business owners, analysts, etc. They can keep a close eye on their work without having to be at the office. Tools like spreadsheets, dashboards and reporting software have been adapted so they could be used on smartphones and tablets as well.
But the truth is that a big screen, a keyboard and a mouse can bring a huge advantage to using a desktop or a laptop. Using mobile devices is just not as comfortable or as efficient. This is the reason why I believe that mobile business intelligence can only be a small part of the business intelligence framework at the moment. But technology is coming up with new developments every day and I am sure that someday technology on the go will provide us with a lot more in terms of user experience, but this isn’t the day.
In the next article I will talk about other factors that I predict to be very important in the business intelligence process.