How can you set up Business Intelligence as a Small Business Owner?

Summary

The website provides a guide for small business owners on setting up Business Intelligence (BI) through data collection, storage, processing, analysis, and reporting.

Abstract

The article titled "How can you set up Business Intelligence as a Small Business Owner?" outlines the steps necessary for small businesses to implement BI practices. It emphasizes the importance of data input via tools like accounting software, ERP systems, Sales CRMs, and Google Sheets. The article then discusses data storage and processing, suggesting the use of MySQL databases and open-source ETL tools such as Pentaho, KNIME, and Dataiku. For data analysis and reporting, it recommends self-service BI tools like Tableau, Domo, and PowerBI, as well as open-source alternatives like Metabase, Redash, and Superset. The article concludes by encouraging readers to reach out for further assistance, reinforcing the idea that BI is accessible and beneficial for small businesses.

Opinions

The author is of the opinion that small businesses can and should leverage data science to benefit their operations.
There is an emphasis on the ease of setting up data reporting with the right tools and minimal help.
The article suggests that data analysis and reporting can be managed without coding skills, using self-service BI tools.
The author believes that advanced reporting is only necessary when data is stored across various databases.
The article conveys that small business owners can create internal reports and alerts quickly with the right BI tools.

How can you set up Business Intelligence as a Small Business Owner?

If you want to know whether Business Intelligence can help a small business, read this first: Can Small Businesses Leverage Data Science?

You are convinced that your business will benefit from Data Science, but don’t know what you can do about it. You can set up data reporting for your organization in no time, with little help. How? This post will guide you.

Data Input → Data Storage → Data Processing → Data Analysis & Reporting

Let’s see how you can replicate this journey in your organization.

Data Collection/Input

To make data useful for your organization, you need to first ensure that you are collecting enough data through various specialized tools or customized data entry forms. Typically, you will have to set up the following to collect organization data and automate processes:

Accounting Software (Tally type software useful for creating accounting charts, ledgers, and balances.)

ERP (For recording Sales, Purchases, Production, Operations data.

Sales CRM — For keeping records of new leads and how the sales process is being managed. Freshsales / Hubspot CRM / Salesforce

Google Sheets — to keep organizational records that otherwise can’t be recorded in existing software.

Data Storage/Processing

Usually, such software have their own databases, therefore, your data will be well organized. However, you can also set up a MySQL DB to collect and store information from various sources. MySQL DB will allow any analyst to write SQL queries to create any type of report.

For Data Processing purposes, there are many open source ETL (Extract Transform Load) tools and data science platforms such as Pentaho, KNIME, Dataiku, etc. These tools help when you are handling multiple data sources and you need to create data flows which bring 2–3 data sources together. However, such advanced reporting comes into play, only if the data is stored in various DBs and can’t be used for analysis.

Data Analysis, Reporting, Alerts

A sample BI report

Typically, you need an analyst to create reports, analysis, and alerts. However, if you or someone on your team learn a self-service BI tool such as Tableau, Domo, Google Data Studio, PowerBI, QlikSense, which are good enough tools for creating internal reports and alerts quickly. Also, this would not require any coding experience.

If you are acquainted with setting up open source systems, you can also try Metabase, Redash, or Superset for your needs.

Hope this helps you understand what all you need to do to set up BI in your organization. Do reach out in the comments for more help.