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...