We are a Power BI Consultancy for Small businesses who want to take control of their data.
We provide the following:
- End-to-end Power BI projects from start to finish
- Managed service – choose the best SLA for your goals
- Training for you and your team
Book a FREE initial call
How can Power BI benefit small businesses?
Small businesses don’t have the resources to have specialist BI developers. With a smaller number of employees typically carrying out a wider range of activities, BI development usually falls on one or two individuals
Typically small businesses get by using Excel and pulling data manually from various systems, which usually ends up in a cycle of lookups, macros and frustration
Starting to leverage Power BI early on in small businesses can really help to get the basics right. Those people that are tasked with ‘creating reports’ will naturally adapt to better and more scalable solutions that can keep up with business growth and not hold it back
We see many opportunities for small businesses to take advantage of their data
Analysing business performance and KPIs from accounting data and transactional data.
Understanding customers from CRMs and transactional data. Tracking Sales and Marketing performance with data from social media, website data
Identifying sales trends.
Often small businesses lack the skills for the complex analysis, but real progress can be seen with good basic disciplines and tracking what is important
The tools don’t need to be expensive with many offerings starting at low or zero costs and growing with the business
Which small businesses benefit from using Power BI?
“We are not big enough”
Many small businesses are unaware of how easy it is to get started with Power BI. And the very low cost to get going
Power BI Desktop can be downloaded for FREE
This opens up the world of proper business intelligence to any organisation no matter what industry
All businesses generate data of some sort, and you can start by connecting your spreadsheets to it
Main advantages of using Power BI for small businesses
Flexible Pricing
Starting with the FREE download of Power BI desktop is a great way to get started and to see the benefits. This comes with a wide range of features that allow data to be ingested from a wide range of data sources and built in connectors. Out of the box connectors include Spreadsheets, databases, CSV files, text files and a whole range of connectors to online services such as Google Analytics
Progression to a Power BI Pro licence is priced low at $10 per user per month and opens up more features and cloud based report sharing (Between licensed users). Some examples of these powerful features include automated data refreshes, data alerts and even the ability to publish reports designed for mobiles
In many small businesses you would only need a small number of users to get the benefits that large companies get in their reporting
Book a Calendly call with Simon
Easy to get started
Power BI has a familiar look and feel if you are used to Microsoft Office. With a little
experimentation you can great some really powerful reports from your existing
data
Of course when you need to add in more complex analysis, or combine data from multiple sources to give you a really powerful dashboard. You can learn the basics fairly quickly using online courses and the built in guides. And there is an active forum full of helpful individuals
Recognising that in small businesses you simply don’t have the luxury of time to spend learning new tools, we offer a low cost Power BI mentoring service designed to help you get up to speed and to help you over your sticking points
Powerful Data Visualisation options
Power BI desktop comes with the most common data visualisation objects you are most likely to need from various bar graphs, line charts, maps and scatter plots. As well as some very useful ones like KPIs and simple tables and pivot tables
And if you need something out of the ordinary there is an active market place allowing custom visuals to be downloaded
Our expertise in supporting small businesses
Simon Harrison ACMA our founder has been working with a range of small businesses since 2018
Simon brings large enterprise reporting capability to small businesses
10 years at Sports Direct, starting as a finance manager. Promoted through to the senior management team as the Head of Operational Finance and Analytics. Working with board members to deliver strategic financial planning for Sales, Margins, Inventory cover. Responsible for the alignment of departmental budgets to the headline company budgets
Simon built a team of analysts, based upon a core skillset of either commercial finance or technical analytics. His role included the leadership of the team of analysts across the business, with representation within functional departments including Buying, Merchandising, E-Commerce, Marketing, and Finance. Fostering knowledge transfer and sharing of best practices.
The aim was to drive confident decision-making as widely as possible, by becoming a data-driven organisation.
Simon began his career at Wm Morrisons Supermarkets, starting as a student working part time and then pursuing a career in Finance. Simon spent 10 years in Senior Management heading up finance in a £300m food manufacturing subsidiary. With responsibilities for systems implementation of finance and ERP systems
Coming from a shop floor background Simon used his experience to enhance his effectiveness in leadership positions. Able to understand how changes to product and processes would flow through to the customer experience
Since moving into the consulting industry Simon has worked with a wide range of clients of all sizes
Why choose Select Distinct as your Power BI Expert?
- We work closely with your team to make sure it all goes smoothly
- We take a deep dive in your reporting set up
- We provide full strategy and training
- Service led business
- Mapped out five-step process
