Mission-critical business data that organizations want and need to leverage for data-driven decisions is often out of reach. The reason isn’t because the data doesn’t exist; rather, it lives in disparate systems across the investment firm. As a result, combining and analyzing data is challenging. However, organizations are overcoming these barriers by adopting business intelligence (BI) reporting tools.
Business intelligence reporting has the potential to drive insights that lead to more efficiency, accuracy, and revenue growth. In this post, learn about what BI reporting tools provide and their benefits to investment firms.
What Are BI Reporting Tools?
BI reporting platforms are software applications that collect, aggregate, analyze, and present data from all relevant systems. They enable functionality that eliminates the need for manual data processing. Once a BI reporting solution has been implemented, cumbersome IT tasks no longer stand as a roadblock to actionable insights.
Business intelligence reporting tools can transform various pieces of data, both internal and external, in different formats into opportunities. By centralizing data into one platform, users can gain accurate visibility into various areas of investment management, including current and historical information such as holdings, transactions, and performance data, which can be turned into user-friendly and interactive BI reports. Another thing BI Reports do well is help communicate key information to stakeholders and employees in a more easily consumable manner. These tools can also leverage AI and machine learning. By adding these advanced technologies, the BI Reporting platform is made even more powerful, as it supports fast computation and analysis for end users.
What’s the Value of Business Intelligence Reporting Tools?
The primary value of business intelligence reporting is the ability to use and derive insights from large datasets. Much of the time, data is not actionable because companies cannot easily aggregate and use it for reporting, or do so with a lot of manual intervention. In trading and investing, there is little time to react and respond if data analysis is manual.
Manually importing and exporting data using Excel, and reconfiguring and re-engineering it with macros, is not sustainable. The goal of BI reporting tools is to move away from this to an automated model.
A BI tool offers data visualization templates for reviewing data. These templates are crucial for finding patterns in business data. With visualizations, an end user can spot trends and patterns more easily and then use their expertise and knowledge to act on them.
This wide-ranging value has implications for optimizing the collection, storage, searching, sharing, analysis, and visualization of data. It’s the must-have competitive advantage that every investment firm needs.
From this foundational value, there are clear benefits to using BI reporting tools.
Benefits of Business Intelligence Reporting for Investment Firms
From the framework of value derived from automation and the potential for real-time insights come these benefits.
Optimize Data for Speed and Performance
When thinking about how BI tools work, consider every data source to be a pipeline. They feed into the BI software to deliver high-level data visualizations and dashboards. One concern many firms face with BI reporting tools is that these pipelines have blockages, which slow down insights and require manual work.
Firms can overcome this with cloud-based BI tools that are fully integrated into their underlying systems, which is essential for eliminating data blockages. With a central site for data that is highly secure and runs optimally for speed, users can have ready access to data that drives business intelligence, improving various activities such as client reporting, investor presentations, and responding to client and consultant requests for data.
For those concerned about their data residing in public clouds, a private cloud hosting solution is the optimum configuration for BI platforms like INDATA’s Architect AI Reporting.
Integrate All Data Streams
For business intelligence reporting tools to be the most comprehensive, integrating data streams is necessary. How easy this is to do depends on the platform. Ideally, organizations would be able to “plug in” integrations to include:
- Front-, middle-, and back-office systems
- Market data
- CRM information
- Research data
- Internal spreadsheets
To realize improved levels of reporting, assess options based on underlying integration capabilities.
Provide Real-Time Control
BI tools can send proactive alerts to investment managers when new data is available. These alerts can be beneficial in responding to data requests quickly and allow users to prioritize their data needs or processes that require attention.
Make Many Workflows More Efficient
Using BI tools yields greater efficiency. As firms focus more on data to drive decisions, efficiency is crucial. Improved efficiency and productivity are typical outcomes of using BI tools that utilize automation capabilities and a centralized data repository. Further, with a scalable architecture, the BI platform can continue to drive workflow efficiency.
Having a BI tool accessible to areas of the firm that need data delivers unified views and helps everyone work smarter. For support with optimizing processes related to data downloads and uploads, back-office managed services are effective in supporting BI Reporting initiatives.
Build Trust With Clients
Cultivating trust between investment managers and clients is essential for long-term relationships. Interactive BI reports provide this trust-building opportunity. Teams that service clients can create reports to improve transparency as they review performance and make recommendations to their clients.
To realize these benefits, firms need the right features.
Key Features Investment Firms Should Seek Out When Evaluating BI Reporting Tools
According to Gartner’s analysis, a BI tool should have these five features:
- Automated insights fueled by AI and machine learning
- Data visualization with interactive dashboards
- Product usability (e.g., user-friendly interfaces and intuitive design)
- Data preparation relating to aggregating data from multiple sources
- Manageability regarding tracking usage and monitoring how information is shared
These features should be every firm’s priority. The next thing to consider for success is establishing best practices around BI Reporting.
Best Practices for Using Business Intelligence Reporting Tools
Before implementing a BI Reporting tool, organizations should develop a list of best practices, including:
- What data sources to integrate/aggregate
- The requirements involved in cleaning the data for accuracy, integrity, and usability
- Setting specific KPIs (key performance indicators) for reporting to ensure the information is relevant in meeting these objectives
- Getting the correct visualization and interactive dashboard configurations that are easy to understand and decipher
These pillars can guide the deployment of a BI Reporting tool so that it lives up to expectations.
Create a Better, More Data-Driven Approach to Investment Data Requests With a BI Reporting Tool
In reviewing what a BI Reporting tool should deliver in terms of value, benefits, and features, firms find INDATA’s Architect AI Reporting hits the mark. It’s fully modern software that enables data aggregation, automation, and integration, which every BI Reporting solution needs.
Learn how it can support firms by requesting a demo.
