Keep score with business intelligence's dynamic duo
Microsoft Dynamics, Office Business Scorecard Manager combine to provide ongoing insight into key performance indicators
Published: 2005-11-03
Decisions are made at all levels of an organization, and providing employees with powerful business intelligence (BI) solutions can help them have greater impact. Microsoft technologies continue to evolve in order to help small and midsize businesses, large organizations, and divisions of global enterprises gain BI faster and more efficiently.
Now, the combined capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager come together to provide a comprehensive way to help organizations gain deeper contextual insight into factors important to their businesses. This helps staff across organizations move forward with common purpose and direction.
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Track and manage performance better with an "out of box" scorecard
No matter the size of the organization, some issues remain unchanged—executives find it difficult to match tactical activities and day-to-day operations to overarching corporate objectives. Managers find it tough to see the relationship between a widely diverse set of business processes and the key business drivers that affect the future performance of the organization. Individuals wrestle with finding role-relevant information they can act on that will make a difference on the front lines. Everyone—from executives and managers to staff—awaits the day when they can finally access data that is meaningful to their specific roles and responsibility in a convenient, clear, and consistent manner. Today, that wait is over.
With “out-of-the-box,” straight-forward methods to move key financial, CRM, and supply chain data to Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services cubes, Microsoft Dynamics customers can quickly take advantage of the rich key performance indicator (KPI) capabilities. With Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager, they can view company data in a comprehensive application that provides all employees with deep, contextual insight into important business drivers.
Target key business indicators
Whether you’re an accounting professional, a sales and marketing executive, or an important contributor on the shop floor, you face the same challenge—to harness the relevant key business indicators that will help you do your part to move the organization forward.
Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager links directly to your Microsoft Dynamics application suite data, enabling you to make sense of and gain valuable insight into key aspects of your business. Being able to monitor key indicators in one convenient, consistent view can allow you to
| • | Gain insight into the current status and trends of key financial ratios that can help you optimize the financial performance of your business. |
| • | Evaluate the effectiveness and profitability of your sales channels. |
| • | Monitor and measure key operational performance metrics and see how adjustments improve efficiency and control costs. |
Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager offers important capabilities to define, capture, and display key performance indicators in a rich graphical dashboard display. Combined with dynamic drilldown support, Business Scorecard Manager can reveal important historical trends and give your organization the ability to analyze data out of key documents, spreadsheets and even Web sites. And it’s all accomplished in a familiar environment because Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager uses and works with Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server to allow end users to easily build, manage, and use KPIs and scorecards.
Analyze, collaborate, and act using familiar applications
Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager is part of the Microsoft Office family of products, so it works like the Office applications you use across your organization every day, taking advantage of the investments you have already made and the skills you already know. It extends the power of the Office platform, so that scorecards and visual strategy maps can be created and managed in a familiar and common way.
Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager has built-in collaboration capabilities that provide a common setting for individuals and teams to analyze data and formulate strategy. It provides a robust framework for interpreting and working with business information. This allows people to understand data in its appropriate context, and also to collaborate more effectively and take action to improve business performance.
Get started quickly and move forward with ease
Because all of the Microsoft Dynamics application suites offer direct, easy-to-implement methods to move essential financial, CRM, and supply chain data to Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services cubes, your organization can quickly and easily begin taking advantage of Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager.
| • | Microsoft Dynamics AX
Get out-of-the-box interoperability through Microsoft Dynamics AX for business analytics. |
| • | Microsoft Dynamics GP
Utilize the Microsoft Dynamics GP Analysis Cubes for Excel offering. |
| • | Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Gain interoperability through Microsoft Dynamics NAV for business analytics. |
| • | Microsoft Dynamics SL
Take advantage of the suite’s Microsoft SQL Server foundation to create Analysis Services cubes (or work with any number of Microsoft Dynamics SL partners that have skills in developing Microsoft Dynamics SL-specific cubes). |
| • | Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Extend the application’s Microsoft SQL Server underpinning to build cube output that is meaningful to them (or take advantage of many partners that have created pre-defined OLAP cubes based on Microsoft CRM). |
| • | Microsoft Dynamics for analytics
Use data from either of these applications through the Microsoft FRx instant OLAP capability to generate local and server-based cubes based on report data, which can include budget data from Microsoft Forecaster or your general ledger application. You can implement Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager on your own, or work with a number of Microsoft partner organizations to help you put your solution into action. They can work with you to build dashboard views and key performance indicators and strategy maps to fit the unique business environment of your organization, or they can install the application and just help you get started. |
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