Statement of the Problem
The rapid growth of our company over the last 12 months has generated the requirements of having a centralized database and reporting / dashboard solution. Management has not been able get real-time high level reports to aid in making informed decisions. In addition, the company has not been able to exceed its customer’s expectation in the face of stiff competition from rival companies. The company’s network is inefficient and has caused serious concerns in forecasting increasing usage and performance of our network.
Purpose and Scope of Work
The purpose of this study is to determine whether a centralized database and real-time reporting solution would help our management and analyst to analyze our network performance as well as foresee any problems and outages in the system. The study will evaluate the benefits of having real-time dashboards in other companies. Such variables as 3D cubes, 3D graphics, real-time interface, ability to filter and sort data and ability to download data will be considered. The study will also evaluate the implementation cost of this solution.
Sources and Methods of Data Collection
Sample dashboards will be reviewed from 10 different companies and vendors similar to our requirements. The management and analysts will be asked to provide their reporting requirements. The technical team will be asked to evaluate the cost of system implementation and as well as the requirements to interface with our existing systems.
Preliminary Outline
The preliminary outline for this study is as follows:
- Do dashboards provide real-time reports?
- How does the management benefit?
- Does the system have the ability to interface with other system?
- How will it help us in evaluating our network performance?
- Features of centralized reporting / dashboard solution?
- Does it support 3D cubes and 3D graphs?
- How many graphs it can support?
- How easy is to create online graphs?
- Does it support login security?
- Does it support RDBMS databases?
- What would a centralized reporting / dashboard solution cost?
- What would be the software license fee?
- Is the license fee per user or per server?
- Does it require dedicated server?
- What would be an installation fee?
- Does it require a full time administrator?
- In-house-development vs. over the counter products?
- Should we make online reports accessible to our customers?
Work Plan
Executive Summary
This report analyses the need to incorporate a centralized database and reporting system. It gives recommendations for enhancing.
Untimely report delivery
The company’s clientele has grown considerably in the last quarter of the year. However, out systems are not built to handle this increasing demand. The company’s reporting system is outdated and inaccurate. Consequently timely reporting has been a challenge. In addition, retrieval of specific information has not bee as fast as we desire.
Inability to Interface with other systems
The amount of time consumed by employees in tasks like linking information to other systems and departments has cost the company a lot of money. It has not been easy to meet targets in time due to this reason. Our customers have expressed concern over our declining efficiency and recommended installation of up to date software to support this. There is need to have a high powered interface system that can sort and filter data. Furthermore, flexibility to update reports or access information has been a problem, as this luxury is available to few staff members.
Online accessibility to our customers
In the past three weeks the company has lost two important clients to its competitors. The reason for this migration is the lack of flexibility on the company’s part. The company still reports in an old fashioned way. Furthermore, the reports are not accessible to customers. The customers feel that they are not empowered to design their own reports and waste a lot of time requesting for assistance from company staff.
Improving on Reporting time
The company has not been keen to keep up with emerging trends in it. Although the current reporting system is cheaper, a centralized database /reporting system will enable generation of detailed reports that support high standard presentation such as 3D. Accuracy and real-time access will be enhanced. It will eliminate double entry errors, fast retrieval and so on. Management will be better placed to make informed decisions. Installation of specialized reporting systems will also enable management to keep track of operations in other departments through use of departmental dashboards (Eder , pp.43-45).
Benefits to online Customers
While the company aims to expand its operations further, retention of its clients is equally important. This report recommends purchase of support systems such as cizerquik query or cizer report builder which will enable users and customers to author reports online without interference from company staff. They will be able to make online graphs and also be empowered to make their reports at any time for as short time as sixty seconds, a feature called ad hoc report creation. With this feature at the disposal of users, customer’s satisfaction will be enhanced.
Report Presentation
The company needs to step up its standards in the area of information presentation. The introduction of centralized dashboard and reporting system will achieve this purpose. Relational DBMS will enable storage of data in tabular, graph forms. Presentation of this data will also facilitate sophisticated presentation of information in 3D cubics and 3D graphs. If the company is able to incorporate these features in its database, the likelihood of commanding more presence in the industry is high (Eder, pp. 43-45).
Reducing Administrative Cost
Given that the company has invested in high quality SQL servers that are capable of supporting additional programs without compromising on other running systems, the cost is significantly reduced. In addition, the market offers a wide range of affordable products. The licensing costs are affordable. Microsoft SQL server installation is free while software like cizer quiery report is affordable. In addition the centralized database reporting system is fully automated and thus does not require a full time administrator. It is user friendly and budgeting on training is almost unnecessary. The benefits derived from this technology out way the initial cost and in the long term reduce cost. It is a worthwhile investment.
Work Cited
Eder, Johann. Advances in Databases and Information systems, 2005, 43-45.