How to Solve BI Planning & Forecasting Challenges

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Accurate and timely business intelligence (BI) is essential for effective planning and forecasting. However, organizations often face numerous challenges in their data journey, as each aspect requires specialized knowledge and expertise to develop optimal solutions.

Below, I explore common challenges that organizations face, drawing on real-world scenarios to illustrate potential solutions. These real-world examples hope to inspire solutions and enhance business intelligence skills to address any BI, planning, and forecasting challenges using the Microsoft Power Platform and Power BI.

Convert Reports to Power BI

Many organizations struggle with report conversions, such as transitioning from Excel or Tableau to Power BI. Additionally, teams often underestimate the importance of data modeling, which can streamline reporting and enhance self-service capabilities to boost productivity. Take a look at how you can guide your teams through these conversions and define the optimal scope of reports that are necessary to migrate.

 

The Solution in Action

When collaborating on report conversions, start by assessing existing reports, often numbering in the hundreds, and conduct a report rationalization. This process helps identify which reports to eliminate or combine, refining your list and finalizing the project scope. Next, design a comprehensive plan for the conversion, typically starting with a small subset of reports to achieve quick wins and gain organizational buy-in, driving adoption. After completing the conversion, don’t forget to offer training that supports continuous improvement, helping you maximize the impact of your investment.

[Sample Report Options]

Fix Inefficient Planning Cycles

Many highly skilled employees spend excessive time on tedious and manual tasks during planning and forecasting cycles, often without achieving reliable and actionable results that drive the business forward. You can accelerate and optimize this process, enabling teams to develop a more effective strategy along the way.

 

The Solution in Action

When enhancing planning and forecasting efficiency, it's essential to first spend time truly understanding the specific requirements. This process often reveals hidden needs that weren't initially apparent. Teams should develop a technological plan to automate repetitive tasks, allowing highly skilled employees to focus on data nuances and actionable insights.

For example, a healthcare organization relied on multiple planning tools, yet employees still spent considerable time meshing data, leading to prolonged planning cycles and delayed actions. To implement meaningful changes, the organization was set up with flexible and secure tools from the Microsoft Power Platform suite, enabling stakeholders to adjust numbers and gain immediate insights for real-time decision-making.

Automate Processes with Power Platform

Manual processes severely hinder productivity, particularly in fast-paced areas like sales, where timing is crucial. While many organizations understand the benefits of automation, they often lack the IT resources to implement it. Moreover, teams frequently don't possess the necessary expertise in innovation and technology to make informed decisions about where and how to apply automation.

The Solution in Action

To address this challenge enterprises must create applications with Power Automate. This comprehensive project process guides enterprise teams from requirements gathering and development to user acceptance testing (UAT) and final production.

For instance, an enterprise using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for their sales process aimed to accelerate sales cycles by ensuring timely notifications were sent to the appropriate personnel when the sales record status changed. They integrated a trigger and action using Power Automate, saving the team significant time and effort. Ultimately, this enabled their sales team to stay on top of key tasks without constantly checking their systems manually.

[Example of a Power BI Dashboard Analyzing Sales & Returns Data] 

Create Easy-to-Use Business Apps

In the past, building business apps to solve complex problems required a team of developers and a lot of time. These apps were often difficult to build and complicated to use, lowering adoption and impacting productivity.

Now, thanks to innovative low- and no-code platforms, organizations can create their own custom-built apps to solve key business problems with little to no coding knowledge.

 

The Solution in Action

Power Apps enables organizations to quickly build user-friendly business apps that pull data from a centralized location, allowing various users to input or retrieve data and insights from different apps.

For instance, a healthcare organization develops an app for doctors to enter referrals. Scheduling staff can now access the same data through a different app and communicate with the doctor once they have scheduled the appointments.

Build Scalable Solutions

Many organizations grapple with identifying the right technology to address their problems. Some apply a one-size-fits-all solution and wonder why they can’t achieve the desired outcomes. In short, they fail to match the right technology with their specific needs. To help enterprise teams address their major pain points with the right technological solutions, it's important to identify options that can scale with the organization's growth. This ensures that the solution remains effective and adaptable over time.

 

The Solution in Action

When working with enterprise teams, it's important to thoroughly understand their problems to tailor solutions that effectively address underlying issues.

For example, during a recent collaboration with a food services organization, the task was to develop precise financial reports and technical documents. As the project requirements were explored, it became clear that a broader data model was necessary to fully meet their needs. This fact finding mission, points us in the direction to go beyond standard reporting, creating a solution that not only fulfills immediate requirements but also provides a foundation for future scalability as their operational demands grow and change over time.

Support Efficient Financial Forecasting

Analysts dedicate substantial time to creating forecasts through manual processes and calculations. While these forecasts are essential for effective planning and decision-making, they often divert attention from other critical business activities. By automating these repetitive tasks, organizations can free up valuable time for employees to focus on analytics and collaborative efforts, thereby fostering business growth.

 

The Solution in Action

An organization aimed to enhance its competitiveness by reducing administrative costs while maintaining high standards. To achieve this, they sought to streamline financial forecasts scattered across multiple Excel files to enhance planning and efficiency. Using Power BI, all data was centralized into a unified platform, enabling the enterprise team to quickly identify opportunities and generate accurate forecasts. Previously, this process took a month, but now it's accomplished in just a week. This rapid turnaround accelerates the ability to gain insights and execute informed business strategies.

Automate Financial Statements

Many organizations try to automate their financial statements by creating different Excel sheets and files. The process is cumbersome and error-prone, impacting planning and forecasting efficiency and accuracy.

 

The Solution in Action

Organizations often need help consolidating data from various sources into Power BI to create comprehensive financial statements. Stakeholders can then access these reports on demand or have them automatically delivered via email on a predefined schedule.

For example, a major consulting firm automated its financial reporting, allowing decision-makers to access income statements, balance sheets, and trial balances specific to each branch. By integrating data through Power BI and deploying reports via Power BI Service, stakeholders now have real-time access to financial insights and receive alerts whenever key performance indicators (KPIs) fluctuate.

Solve Enterprise BI Challenges with the Right Technology

No matter what your BI challenges are, the right tools and efficient processes can significantly enhance planning and forecasting in your business. Getting guidance can help in selecting the most suitable solutions and designing workflows that streamline operations and improve accuracy.