Do You Have A Wizard of Microsoft Excel? 5 Risks of Relying on Them For Your Business Reports
In small business, it’s typical for employees wear more than one hat. But when an organization or team counts on one employee for all of their reporting needs, they’re taking a big (and unnecessary) risk.
Drawing from our experience working with small to medium-sized business, we’ve identified five common risks of relying on a “report wizard” and outlined how an agile BI tool can minimize these risks.
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The wizard’s productivity takes a hit.
Here’s a formula for failure: your report wizard’s primary job is product development, but they’re constantly taken off task to run “urgent” reports. Not only does this scenario negatively impact the employee’s productivity and performance, it’s also a great way to ruin his or her morale.
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If the wizard gets sick or quits, you’re out of luck.
Fred from finance is your “go-to data guy,” but what happens if he’s sick or suddenly quits? Or what if you need to fire Fred? You might find you’re holding on to him longer than you should because he’s the only one that understands the ins and outs of reporting.
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No checks and balances.
When you count on just one person for your reports, you better hope he or she knows what they’re doing. After all, you’re using the information the report wizard gives you to make important decisions about your business; if you’re getting bad data, you’re not making sound decisions. Worse yet, your report wizard could intentionally deliver inaccurate data, and you wouldn’t know until it’s too late.
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Requesters don’t get the data they need.
When your manufacturing supervisor asks Suzy from the sales team for a report, there’s a good chance he’s not going to get the exact information he needs. That’s because Suzy knows sales, not manufacturing. Moreover, because gathering data isn’t Suzy “real job” he doesn’t want to nag her for changes or additional information. So, he makes due with what he’s got and misses the chance to get his hands on data that could help him improve his department.
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The wizard has access to sensitive information
Let’s say your company’s report guru is a marketing team member- do you really want him or her to have access to all of your company’s data? Whether it’s which department had the highest sales last week, or data about your company’s financial health, when only one person knows how to collect and compile reports, they end up knowing more about your organization than they need to.
Yurbi Can Turn Every Employee Into a Business Intelligence Hotshot
Yurbi is an agile BI tool created for the business user. Its gives everyone in your organization the power to drill down into data, create reports and build dashboards. Plus, Yurbi’s best in class security protocols ensure users only have access to the information they need. For example, Yurbi’s “App Shield” feature provides centralized data level security, so once the administrator creates a security profile for a user or group it’s instantly applied throughout the entire Yurbi platform.
Best of all, Yurbi is affordable. Priced right for small to medium sized businesses, Yurbi starts at $250 per month for 5 users and as your user base grows, the cost of Yurbi tiers down.
If any of the scenarios outlined above sound familiar, your organization might benefit from a business intelligence solution like Yurbi. To learn more about how a BI tool can help your organization, we suggest reading our free eBook “The Hidden Cost of Bad Business Intelligence.” If you’re ready to take the next step, the Yurbi Pricing Guide will provide you with everything you need to know to help calculate your BI costs and develop your usage strategy.