Ep. 42: Robert Koechig - Data Analytics & Business Intelligence Solutions

Robert's Resources:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobkoechig/
• Data Analytics: http://www.troutcpa.com/data-analytics
• Data Analytics Demo: http://www.troutcpa.com/data-analytics-demo

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:05)

Welcome back for episode 42 of Count Me In. As we strive to provide you with the information most important to your role as an accounting and finance professional. No topic may be more relevant than that of data analytics. Robert Koechig, president at TEG IQ talked with Adam about the importance of business intelligence for the CFO team and how to effectively use data analytics. Let's head over to their conversation now.

Adam: (00:35)

So Robert, what is the importance of effective data analytics and business intelligence for the CFO team?

Robert: (00:42)

I think the key word in the question that you asked was effective. I think most organizations in today's age know that there's value in data analytics and that there's business intelligence that they could access. I think most of the industry looks at that as basically really pretty Excel sheets, whether it's in browser, wherever that is. So I think we kind of have to take a step back and say, what does effective mean on what are effective data analytics. It's one of the things that we kind of strive with. We start with really saying if it's not going to provide actionable information, where you are digesting something that you're seeing on screen and being able to make an impactful decision in your everyday business operations. I don't really think it's an effective BI tool. So that's, where we really like to combine the data analytics and the business intelligence. The technology side, what we're passionate about is combining that with the human decision making element. So as a CFO we want to have technology bolster your gut feeling and or challenge it. being as the case may be.

Adam: (02:01)

That makes a lot of sense to connect the two together cause they, you have to partner with the business. You can't just look at pretty charts and make decisions. You have to go beyond that.

Robert: (02:09)

Exactly. I mean it's what we're trying to do is give you a tool that will enable you to make a corrective action at day two as opposed to day 45 when the books are closed at the end of the month. That's really what we're looking to. That's the type of environment that we think does become now an effective tool that you can use in your organization to really change. I mean, in some cases, if you could correct an action and have visualizations where it alerted you to an action, at day two in a process. So something that happened yesterday and you can make a corrective change today, then that's something that I think is pretty powerful.

Adam: (02:50)

So could you give us a overview of the types of data analytics and business intelligence you focus on?

Robert: (02:56)

Sure. So really what we like to do is, look at the fragmented data solutions. So what I mean by that is most organizations, especially in today's app world, have an app that does one specific thing very well. There are other situations where you have an all in one environment where you have one ERP system that does everything from payroll to time entry to point of sale to everything else. But really what we look for is, you know, kind of the low hanging fruit right now in the industry, which really makes a big value, is the organizations that use one application for payroll, one application for their order entry or their point of sale, one maybe business operational system in their warehouse or in their plant. Where there's reports that are being driven from each one of those, but none of them are really in a consolidated reporting fashion. One of the places where we really provide a lot of value and really what we're providing is value to, to our clients is the ability to take fragmented or disconnected systems. Great example of that is you have Salesforce as your CRM and maybe you have QuickBooks as your backend financial. They have operational integrations, but to run a consolidated report or even see insights right next to each other, Salesforce and QuickBooks. Usually what that means is you have someone on your staff who's pulling data down from Salesforce, pulling data down from QuickBooks, putting it into Excel and manipulating it from there. So that's typically where we like to live and the way that we do that really is by the ability to pull all the data without impacting your environment. So one of the things that we try to do is we want to have as minimal it involvement as possible and the way that we're able to achieve that is really by our interview interview process. So as far as the types of data analytics and business intelligence that we focus on, it's really, interesting to see how even within identified vertical niches that every organization operates a little bit differently. Of course you have your 80 20 rule, which always applies. However, where we like to really provide values is really looking at partnering with you and saying what will make the most sense? You know, we don't want to just provide a product, and this is typical in the industry, is within business intelligence. Someone says business intelligence, someone says data analytics and people think, okay, I'm going to have a dashboard, a dashboard that I can log in and it's going to show me all my metrics. And that's great. And from a very high level, it's absolutely what every single data analytics or business intelligence project is. But again, we're probably going gonna revert back to our first question of an effective environment. What we try to do is really say, what's going to make the most impact to you to see connected and joined together. it's one of, it's one of those things where we could provide something off the shelf. And a lot of what we do is, however, it's also partnered with the custom piece that makes your job that much more effective.

Adam: (06:22)

So as we dig a little deeper into this idea of analytics and business intelligence, you know, most people understand analytics and insight is vital for business success in today's industry. So what is it about the data analytics that many often overlook or don't fully understand?

Robert: (06:38)

Sure. there's the old mantra within It, really any technology project where you do a project and you kind of wipe your hands of it, you walk away and it's there and it's running. Business intelligence is a little bit different, you know, the analytics and insights that can change week to week in some cases. So what we try to, what we try to really educate, as we go through our projects, we try to really educate on is that this is a commitment to changing the way that we make our decisions as part of this organization. What I mean by that is what we really want to be able to do is say, this will be effective to you as as much as you use it. And you know, there's a lot that we can get into in machine learning and AI where the more that you put in, the more value that you get out, but at a very base sense of it, where we see a lot of the maybe overlooking or maybe just error in calculation is a lack of commitment from organizations...