Chapter 58. Excel as a BI frontend tool
The amount of business data is increasing exponentially, and computers and technology have made the world move faster. Uninformed decisions may be the result of a world moving faster than the minds of the decision makers, who increasingly need business intelligence (BI) systems.
The concept of BI is related to the ability to provide quality information at the right time to all layers of an organization (strategic, tactical, and operational), making it more competitive today than yesterday and more competitive tomorrow than today. The term was officially coined in 1989 by Howard Dresner, but the practices inherent in this concept have always been present in our daily lives. For Microsoft, BI is “getting the right information, to the right decision makers, at the right time.” In the economic world crisis, a new phrase should be added to the original definition: “at lower cost.” At lower cost and user-friendly, a tool like Excel could be a good option in the BI frontend spectrum.
This chapter explains the construction of an Excel dashboard from an IT and business perspective in a retail sector scenario. It isn’t intended to show the best way to create a dashboard for the retail sector, but to describe some tips and tricks for a low-cost dashboard using a familiar tool commonly implemented across organizations: Excel.
