Original equipment manufacturers (OEM) are hard pressed to innovate, cut costs and utilise value driving tools to streamline their operations. In a digital world, achieving this requires the ability to draw real insights from data analytics; and this in turn requires the ability to analyse data in a unique and powerful way.
Recognising this need in the market, Modernising Management (a Top 5 South African Qlik Master Reseller [SAQMR] Gold and OEM Partner) recently launched its innovative Analytics2Insight platform. The company’s CEO, Jean Paul Kirton, confirmed that the platform was born from a desire to help others reap the benefits of effective analytical insights.
“As a Small, Medium Enterprise (SME), we gained great value from our own analytics on our own finance and productivity solutions,” confirms Kirton. “We wanted to support other SMEs to gain insights into their own businesses, helping them make informed decisions, and teaching them how to take specific actions to drive and manage their own growth and success.”
After two years of careful consideration, cloud research, development, testing and the inculcation of best practices, Analytics2Insight was officially launched on the 1st of August 2018. The solution itself is based on an OEM agreement between Modernising Management and SAQMR. Kirton first experienced the Qlik application while working in Finland, and it was a natural choice to partner with SAQMR in South Africa, knowing what the applications can achieve.
Having already won a Partner Innovation Award, it is clear that this is a solution that SAQMR believes in. According to James Hickman, Managing Director SAQMR, an EOH Company, there is much excitement about the value that this solution will drive for customers. “We believe this solution to be a game changer. Featuring high levels of innovation, and the inclusion of cutting-edge emerging technology, it will certainly help many small companies succeed.”
The driver behind the development of the solution remains helping other businesses make better decisions, in order to enhance performance. When looking back, Kirton recalls that Qlik’s investment in the cloud space gave Modernising Management the impetus it needed to begin developing the solution. As the businesses move forward, they do so with a focus on “1SAQlik”; working together to drive more value for customers.
This unique insights-as-a-service, end-to-end solution is purpose-built for cloud based services. As it goes further than simply delivering software, it is not considered a SaaS solution. “We’ve automated the integration to cloud platforms, proving prebuilt, best in class, advanced analytical applications and reporting, built on Qlik technology,” advises Kirton. “Customers have access to their insights within five minutes, so it’s fully automated. The purpose is to empower organisations to achieve DIDA (Data Insights Decisions Action).”
Incorporating emerging technology, the cloud for cloud solution offers artificial intelligence (AI) prebuilt within the analytical solution. This effectively delivers predictive and machine learning type models for recommendation within the solution. “An example would be our cash flow prediction model for Sage Business Cloud Accounting. Additionally, we will launch our chatbot early in October 2018, so users can ask questions from their analytics across various chat-based platforms,” states Kirton.
The Qlik Sense platform also provides cognitive driven self-service methods, allowing the application to generate recommended views, answers and visualisations of data. This supports the self-service drive and enhances the user experience, ensuring customers can build insights according to their preferred visualisations of the data. This cognitive engine ensures that the more users utilise the solution, the easier it becomes; it learns and grows with the user.
“I do believe, however, that this will be most successful when planned as part of building data literacy and supporting the customer to really understand their data and how to interpret it. Once we have achieved this, then self-service is a natural progression of addressing the customer’s requirements going forward,” adds Kirton.
The solution, which is packaged for Finance, Social Media and Productivity, CRM, HCM is geared to help any business in any industry make better decisions, based on reliable data. With a simple online, instant subscription, the solution can be functional within five minutes, even when initiating the implementation from a mobile device.
Kirton concludes with a quote from Mark Twain; “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Often, silo data based reporting solutions deliver inaccurate information, which lead to poor decision making power. “This is what we are fighting against through the delivery of an analytical AI driven solution that gives users a comprehensive understanding of their business.”
Edited By Darryl Linington
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