Introducing Power BI

We kick off our three-part series exploring the intricacies and advantages of Power BI managed services with host Peter Filitz and guests Mike Gleeson and Mark Rotherham. 

In this episode, we unravel the essentials of Microsoft Power BI and its critical role in modern business analytics. 

Mark (CTO at BCN) sheds light on how Power BI serves as a transformative tool for data collection, analysis, and visualisation, turning raw data into actionable insights and Mike, (Head of the Data Services Team) outlines the journey towards creating a Power BI managed service tailored to a diverse client base, from large enterprises to SMEs.

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Transcript

Peter: 0:02

Hello and welcome to today's podcast. With me on this episode, we have Mike Leeson and Mark Rotherham. We'll be talking about Power BI managed services, and this is the first installment of Three, where we'll discuss the pros and cons, the added benefits that come with Power BI, and what insights it can give you into your data sets. Mark, why don't you start by giving us a little introduction on yourself?

Mark: 0:29

Yeah, hi everyone. So Matt Rotherham. I'm the CTO at BCN. I look after our technical strategy and basically champion all things tech through BCN and into our customers. Excellent. Thanks, Mark. Michael, welcome.

Mike: 0:45

Yeah, thanks, Peter. So Mike Gleason, and um I'm heading up the data services team. So anything to do with data, especially Power BI, which is one of the topics today. That's that's my team that covered that.

Peter: 0:57

Excellent. Welcome, gentlemen. Thanks for your time. So I guess, Mark, why don't you give us a brief introduction into Microsoft Power BI?

Mark: 1:05

Yeah, so um Microsoft Power BI is effectively a business intelligence tool that we can all use to collect, analyze and visualize data from different sources in your environment. Most common use case of Power BI is to take data from Excel and make it look pretty. And it's very good at giving you very quick speed to value with regards to interactive charts and graphs to do with your data. So it's a software-based platform that Microsoft uh license out, and we effectively configure it, make sure that all your data goes in the right way, and expose it to our intelligence over your data effectively.

Peter: 1:53

Thanks, Mark. That's that's a great overview. And can you highlight the significance of the data and data visualizations for the modern businesses?

Mark: 2:03

Yeah, so more now than ever, um data is becoming the lifeblood of modern businesses. And what that means is with the right data strategy and tooling, you can understand how your business is performing. You can understand all of the different metrics against what your business objectives are, and you can start to track those in a way that um you can measure yourself. And one of the the really important trends that we're seeing is is making data work for you and for your business. So it's all about making data-led decisions, uh being able to make decisions that you can then track the impact of and measure those. So it's starting a loop of having a trusted set of data that you can use to make your business better and more efficient or scale or grow over time. So I wouldn't say it's a new theme, but it's it's emerging as one of the things that every company must do and must have a data strategy around. And Power BI just really helps sit right in the middle of that to make it accessible and easy to consume.

Peter: 3:08

Yeah, that's that's so true. And you know, just touching on the significance of data and and understanding what that data means, I think is obviously the biggest challenge and being able to bring it all together to a single pane of glass, which gives you a deep visualization of what's going on within your business. And I think that adds to BCN's mission and and the value that we are looking to bring to clients in leveraging this technology. And I know Mike, you and your team have been working hard on the Power BI managed service that we're looking to bring to our customers because it is an ongoing journey, as with many of these services and technologies, and being able to provide a sort of wraparound service which can help put clients on that journey and show them the advantages and uh efficiencies that it brings is important. Mike, can you elaborate a little around the story with you and your team and obviously what you're looking to bring to our clients and prospects with the managed service?

Mike: 4:12

It's probably um good to just start off with you know, Power BI is a user-grade system, and Microsoft will call it citizen development. So, in a lot of companies, there is people that are building Power BI and Power Apps, etc. I think what we're trying to do with the managed service is that we have customers, um, clients from various different ranges. So we've got enterprise-wide clients, you know, foot to 100 customers, um, and we have SME and SMB. So we have such a wide range of a client base that what we've tried to do is come up with something that's suitable for everybody. What we find is that a lot of people will go down the Power BI journey, and like I said, they can have people internally that are doing it, but it comes to a point where you might need some expertise where you can have somebody from a different consultancy firm or bring in somebody who understands how some of it fits together. So, what we've tried to do with the managed services cover all um different scenarios. We've got three elements to it. So we've got the data service essentials, which um in essence is keeping the lights on. So if somebody wants to run a Power BI project and build some Power BI dashboards, then they might want to make sure that it's always working. The management team might be using it, etc., so they don't want it to fail and not work. So we've got an essentials service, which will just mean that they can ring us at any point and we can fix it for them. We've got the Data Service Pro, which gives you everything that the Data Essentials service does, but it also gives you some consultancy days. So we would have one of our developers that would spend a number of days with each of the clients where they can go in and build new dashboards and help them with building it and helping upskill the teams internally. And then we've got a data managed service, which is pretty much that a company wants a consultancy at BCN to run their whole Power BI state for them. And so we do that with some of the clients already where they don't want to necessarily have internal developers or they might have a couple of them, but the work stacks too much for them. So they'll outsource the whole thing.

Peter: 6:12

That's great. Yeah. So essentially what you can offer is a a tailored approach to suit each individual business need. So if they want a fully outsourced Power BI team just located off-site, but working with the business, we can provide that. But so too, augment and support any existing Power BI functions they've got within the business and add that extra layer of expertise and experience, which is great. Um I I guess what are some of the challenges and considerations with Power BI that you guys have seen? And I guess it's probably a question for both of you. Mark, why don't you share your thoughts on that?

Mark: 6:52

Yeah, so one of the most common problems and challenges our customers tend to have is having a single source of truth. So quite often they've done exactly what Mike says, they've had a play. They've got citizen developers that go and create some powered BI dashboards, and they might even publish those and get other people to use them. But then you've got people in a different team doing the same thing. And they might make slightly different assumptions, they might treat the data slightly differently, they might even join the data if they get an advance slightly differently. And what you end up with then is management looking at dashboards which should say the same thing, but actually have totally different values or references. So having a single source of truth that flows into the the ecosystem is a challenge and an opportunity. If you get it right, it's it's really powerful. If you get it wrong, then obviously you've got a lot of issues. One of the other uh big challenges we see is again, as Mike referenced, things like the pipeline or the data not working. So it's very easy to join Excel to Power BI. It's also very easy to break Excel linked to Power BI, having done that several times myself. So there's some really simple things that can make data really accessible in Power BI, but it's very easy to fall into traps if you're not careful. So th those are a couple, but I'm sure Mike's probably got a few more examples as well.

Peter: 8:15

Yeah, Mike, why don't you share your thoughts with us?

Mike: 8:18

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mark. And yeah, I I echo what Mark said and Peter, but I think one thing that most companies do, and it's human nature, that one of the challenges I see is that people always think that they need to get their data perfect before they then go into a data project. Well, I I don't see that as the case, and actually I I think you're actually better having an open mind when you're going through these types of projects and understanding that your data is probably never going to be perfect. Trying to get perfect data uh is kind of the utopia of what most companies are trying to do. But actually, when you go through a Power BI project, what it does, it highlights where the data's wrong, and that might not necessarily always come out when you're not using a tool such as Power BI or another analytics tool. So as long as you're up front with your end users and your business when you're doing these projects, what it allows you to do is it's not just running a data project, it's actually running something to improve the data that you've got and get it working in the way that you want it. We see lots of companies doing this, and the increase in the uptake of the data because it's more accurate drives the use of the analytics tool. So I think that's a trap that companies shouldn't fall into is just trying to think that they're going to have perfect data to be able to start a data project because it's just not needed.

Peter: 9:33

Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Mark. Yeah, so true. And as you say, I think one of the biggest challenges we are seeing is you know how to manage the data. It is increasing at such a rapid rate, the rate at which we've not seen before. And trying to make sense of it all is obviously challenging, especially if you're working with distributed IT systems and data living in multiple different environments. Trying to bring it all together and make sense of it is challenging. And um having ways of identifying where those data may have inaccuracies obviously will help you, as you say, on your journey to cleaning up that data and getting it in a much better state. The gentlemen, thank you so much for your time today. I think that's been really informative and given our audience a great overview on what Power BI is and and the managed services that we bring to market with that. I'd like to thank you both for your time.

Mike: 10:32

Thanks, Pete. Cheers, Peter, and speak to you next time.

Peter: 10:36

And just let the audience know, we've got an exciting instalment with episode two. We'll be looking at typical use cases in the small and medium business space and how Power BI can drive efficiency and bring value to your business. Don't forget to uh visit our website at www.bcn.co.uk for a wealth of information. Thank you for your time. Stay tuned in and see you later.