Business intelligence tools are a great resource for any organization to review raw data. These tools help companies to mine, process and report data points to enhance your ability to analyze results and come to a balanced conclusion.
There are a number of solutions available offering varying scales of BI functionality. The most basic way to gain business intelligence for your brewery is by using Excel Pivot Tables. This is a free tool that anyone with Microsoft Office already owns via Microsoft Excel. Pivot tables are one of Excel’s most powerful features. Although Excel is not the ideal tool to use for your database, an Excel pivot table allows you to extract and analyze the significance from a large, detailed data set.
Easily review production by month, by formula over time graphically via a pivot table to easily identify trends and outliers.
By utilizing Business Intelligence (BI), brewery operations will have increased visibility, improved efficiency, and most importantly the ability to turn data into actionable information.
Excel Pivot Tables Help Breweries Look at KPIs Such As:
What brews are getting the best yield?
What brews are costing me significantly more or less than they should?
How much labor do I think I am consuming versus what I am actually consuming?
How can you access data that you did not key into Excel? You can use a data connection to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server database from a Microsoft Excel file. All you need are rights to read the database and the tables within the database which you probably already have.
By connecting your excel pivot table to a dynamic database, brewers can easily highlight exceptions and production outliers, rather than sifting through static excel sheets of data.
So while I don’t encourage using Excel as a replacement for your brewery’s database, I do encourage using this terrific tool to analyze data you already own with a tool you already use. If you need assistance in using Excel Pivot tables to access VicinityBrew software or Microsoft Dynamics data don’t hesitate to reach out. Once you have created your first data connection and Excel Pivot Table you will truly see the power in this starter business intelligence BI tool.
IF YOU ARE READY TO GET STARTED OR HAVE ANY QUESTIONS,
