Access and Transparency: Two Keys to Drive Organizational Transformation with Data
There is no shortage of data within a human services organization. Unfortunately, most of the data is siloed by department and housed within individual application systems and/or spreadsheets. This practice causes so many problems for Providers, and here’s why.
First off, when your staff doesn’t have access to pertinent information, they can’t make timely and well-informed decisions. Furthermore, the process of consolidating, updating, and organizing data in spreadsheets is manual and time consuming. There is a better way and it’s called Business Intelligence (BI).
A Business Intelligence system gathers, stores, automates and analyzes complex enterprise data and then transforms it into meaningful, actionable information in the form of data tables and easy to understand visualizations. This organized, real-time output of knowledge generates a whole new level of data accessibility and transparency.
When your Agency relies on cloud-based BI technology, analyzed data is at your fingertips. Now, everyone on the team has insights surrounding key metrics. Everyone is aligned and in the loop on initiatives, goals, and progress. During meetings with key stakeholders you can pull up and reference the data and reports on the spot. Think of the impact when you do not have to tell Leadership or the Board, “Let me look into the data and get back to you.”
Even better, time once spent consolidating and trying to make sense of data will be automated, and you can be dedicated to more important projects. Your team will be far more agile and be empowered to work on improving the organization and not just manually manipulating data. Creating better data accessibility and true data transparency are the foundation to leading organizational transformation.
Remember, not all BI technology systems are created equal. Choose a partner who understands the human services industry and a platform built specifically for your organization’s unique reporting requirements. You don’t have to start from scratch either. The BI Collaborative is a proven solution that is already fully developed and utilized successfully by human services organizations.
