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How many pie charts does it take to make a decision?

Discover a more accurate way to see one version of the truth

Isn't it frustrating when you get a variety of answers to a question? You may need to know exactly how your marketing activity is influencing sales, review how products are faring across regions, or look into different seasonal trends.

You need one answer – the truth – and for that you need information to be relevant, accurate and timely. Everyone needs to be working towards the same goals, using the same insights and analysis.

With Microsoft Business Intelligence solutions you can feel reassured when you need to make a decision quickly through:

  • One version of the truth — enabling confident decisions by integrating all of your data; bringing you a simple, accurate version of business performance.
  • Turning data into action — giving your employees access to the relevant stores of data throughout your company, and turning it into insights they can act upon.
  • Integrated data giving greater insight — allowing you to identify the leads that generate sales by creating customised reports for better data analysis.
  • Invaluable insights — helping drive business forward into the future.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Overview


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  • Best solution
  • Better solution
  • Good solution

What do you need?

The solution:

Extend the capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Excel 2010 with Microsoft SharePoint Server. As well as integrating and consolidating data your team can now bring it to life in tangible ways, creating and publishing Key Performance Indicators.

Benefits:

  • Incorporate data — pull together data from multiple sources into a single report.
  • Manipulate large amounts of data — quickly and easily.
  • Create 'What if' scenarios — flag, select, segment data based on customer behaviour.
  • Easily define progress — see what has been achieved towards a goal through Key Performance Indicators.
  • Bring data to life — SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services represent data in more tangible ways such as graphs/charts/pivot tables etc.
  • One clear view — consolidate and integrate data faster with SQL Server 2008 Integration Services.
  • Extend your solution capabilities — create and publish Key Performance Indicators using SharePoint Server.

Products required

What do you need?

The solution:

Using SQL Server 2008 in combination with Excel 2010 gives you a business intelligence platform that will grow with your business. Users can quickly view, analyse and pull insight out of large amounts of data where and when they want it.

Benefits:

  • Incorporate data — pull together data from multiple sources into a single report.
  • Manipulate large amounts of data — quickly and easily.
  • Create 'What if' scenarios — flag, select, segment data based on customer behaviour.
  • Easily define progress — see what has been achieved towards a goal through Key Performance Indicators.
  • Bring data to life — SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services represent data in more tangible ways such as graphs/charts/pivot tables etc.

Products required

What do you need?

The solution:

Tools you already have, such as Excel 2010 and pivot tables, can help you to organise your data and show information. The downside is that this is a manual process and if the data is stored on one person’s computer it is unlikely to be completely up to date. Errors can also occur when copying from multiple data sources.

Benefits:

  • Easy-to-use and affordable — a well-known solution.
  • See visual trends quickly — with heat maps.

Products required

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