Power BI delivers a business advantage

With our Mainstream Power BI service, our client, Publicis Groupe SEE, has improved business efficiency and saved a lot of time thanks to the straightforward, understandable, and engaging presentation of business information relevant to decision making.

Goals

• Time-saving, easy data access, and a more efficient intra- and inter-team communication
• Centralize data and easy understanding of insight just a few clicks away
• Access to data and reports via mobile devices and tablets
• Unification of report methods for countries in the Southern Europe cluster
• Good information of all critical members of the organization

Approach

• Defining insights and relevant metrics that the client wants to have access to through analytics and reports (the client provides examples of reports that have been used so far)
• Defining all business processes and their analysis in order to determine which of them will be included in the project
• Establishing an internal data management policy (defined place for data storage together with all of the security and privacy aspects)
• Mainstream makes a suggestion about the best way to visualize and model the data in order to convey the information as well as possible
• Introduction of Power BI tools and data modeling

Results

• With Power BI and predefined reports created by the Mainstream’s expert team, fast access to data and analysis in just a few clicks has been enabled
• Power BI allows for the so-called drill-down analysis that creates a hierarchy of data (from general to specific)
• Intelligent insight at one’s fingertip: data is imported and visualized so that the person observing and analyzing it doesn’t have to waste time manually searching and categorizing data
• It is now possible to leave comments directly within the tool and on the reports and mark appropriate people and ask them for more information, which will speed up and simplify communication

Publicis Groupe is a global marketing and communication agency that brings together under its roof several agencies from Publicis Groupe, a reputable French multinational company with an almost century-long tradition.

Publicis Groupe Serbia is an integral part of Publicis Groupe — Southeast Europe (SEE), and it includes many successful brands, including well-known names such as Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, Starcom, Zenith, and others.

As a company with top experts, well-developed and high-quality management staff, thanks to the suggestion provided by Mainstream, Publicis Groupe SEE recognized that there is room for improvement in the field of reporting and that it is possible to simplify processes, save time, and increase productivity by introducing new reporting tools and systems.

Start of Cooperation With Publicis Groupe – Southeast Europe

Publicis Groupe SEE used its own monthly reporting methods, and it did so quite correctly and in line with the regulations. It used advanced functions of Excel files, where each file contained tens of megabytes of data.

In June 2019, the IT director of Publicis Groupe SEE was informed that Mainstream also offered the creation of predefined reports within the Power BI tool as a part of its portfolio.

Power BI is a business intelligence tool that allows you to quickly and with ease see the current state of your business by observing data. Thanks to the intuitive interface and the possibilities offered by specifically tailored and predefined reports, it is possible with just a few clicks to see at which stage each of your processes is, as well as map trends and set a new strategic course for the future.

Since Damir Jović, the responsible IT director of Publicis Groupe SEE, liked the idea of introducing Power BI tools in the organization, he forwarded the information to Branislav Lončar, CFO, who recognized the value of the tools and support of Mainstream, and the collaboration began.

At the very beginning of the collaboration, Publicis Groupe SEE presented its requirements and expectations.

Specific requirements by Publicis Groupe SEE

In order to create a unique solution, i.e., in order for Mainstream as an expert partner to define the types of reports that would facilitate the Publicis Groupe SEE business and optimize existing processes, it was first necessary to list all the challenges and requirements of the client.

The Southern European cluster within the Publicis Groupe SEE includes seven countries. The primary focus was on financial statements, and a way had to be devised to keep them clear and concise with an emphasis on the top management that didn’t have too much time to delve into the data. The reports, for example, compare realized income with the projected one, as well as different KPIs. There are also analyses of the latest metrics in relation to macroeconomic indicators, division by regions based on business performance, etc.

The Publicis Groupe SEE client wanted to:

• Save time and consolidate data, as there are a large number of data sources
• Establish relationships between data, i.e., to design a way to model them in order to be presented visually and convey clear information
• Centralize data and get quick access to relevant reports in just a few clicks
• Ability to access data via mobile devices and tablets
• Unify the way of reporting for all organizations that are a part of the South European cluster
• Provide good information within the organization, both horizontally and vertically
• Improves the speed and efficiency of intra- and inter-team communication regarding reports and data

Defining the Ideal Solution: Predefined Reports Within the Power BI Tool

After listing all the challenges and specific requirements of the Publicis Groupe SEE, what follows is the definition of the project size and its specifications.

Since Mainstream models data, i.e., creates reports based on clients’ data, it is essential that there is mutual trust, as well as full commitment and transparency in order for the end result to meet all of the client’s needs.

Defining the ideal solution and its implementation is a process that consists of several phases:

• Defining business processes that should be analyzed in-depth and describing them
• Deciding on the processes that the project will include (i.e., specifying those processes that will be used for the initial analysis)
• Process prioritization (if several different processes require improvement)
• Discussion of the insights that the client needs, i.e., listing insights that should be readily available through analytics
• Analysis of sample reports currently used by the client
• Discussion of relevant metrics that are important for the client as part of the reporting process

In such projects, it is always a challenge to define all data sources, decide on the type of data to be used, its size, type of infrastructure on which the data is stored, etc. The end result also depends on the quality of the information provided by the client and their willingness to lead Mainstream as a professional partner through the basics of their business.

Based on the collaboration and relevant experience in the industry, Mainstream’s expert team suggests how to display key information or what the best way to model data in Power BI would be so that information is transmitted as clearly as possible and made easily accessible to all, regardless of their level of data understanding.

As a result, the data within the tools is not displayed in its raw form but classified and modeled. The created data model is then contextualized and formulated into insights. Power BI pulls data from a number of different sources and then organizes it into intelligent insights, giving them a clearly understandable, interactive visual form via charts or other graphical representations such as dashboards that one can interpret in an instant.

Power BI also enables the so-called drill-down analysis: thanks to data hierarchy and its categorization, the client can use the interactive infographic and go down to the level of an individual end-client. It is possible to go even more granular with the analysis, to look at how many projects that client is on, how the cooperation with the client is going, what the metrics that show the success of each individual project are, and so on. Power BI provides an opportunity to go from general to individual, i.e., from general to the last iteration.

The Efficiency of Mainstream Reports Within the Power BI Tool for the Specific Case of Publicis Groupe SEE

Switching to a new system is usually a challenging process, but the situation with Power BI tools is a bit different. Microsoft has really gone a step further when it comes to creating this intuitive and simple product that supports integration, import, and export of data.

As we mentioned, the team of experts from Publicis Groupe SEE relied on Excel and its advanced features in their work. An additional positive side of Power BI is that it allows full integration of Excel, which means that the existing reports and data models can be easily transferred to visual panels, without the need for employees to waste time learning new applications or technologies.

In addition, the reports created by Mainstream for Publicis Groupe SEE fully fulfilled all their requests.

Efficiency has been improved with great time savings, and the way of communication and cooperation has been optimized to the maximum. The information is now clearly presented in an understandable and engaging way. In addition, it is currently accessible both via desktop and mobile devices, including both phones and tablets. In Excel, the data was not as visible on mobile devices, but Power BI reports have now been additionally adapted to smaller screens.

The client no longer had to waste time interpreting data and was given the space to focus their efforts where they were really needed — to clearly see intelligent insights, analyze the situation, and make an informed decision for future steps.

Besides that, it became possible to automatically use the defined reports during the project for various purposes. For example, visualized data could now be exported directly to PowerPoint planning presentations with just a few clicks. Also, simplified reports could be shared equally easily via SharePoint to those users who do not need detailed analysis through Power BI.

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We thank Publicis Groupe SEE for their trust. We are proud that the third biggest communication company in the world recognized Mainstream as a professional and reliable partner and that they are very satisfied with the final results of our collaboration.

Experience has shown that often the potential of Power BI tools remains untapped just because customers are not informed in sufficient details about possibilities it offers. That is why we work closely with companies and make ourselves available to them for all possible questions.

Are you interested in how the Power BI tool could help your company and what kind of reports are created by the Mainstream expert team? Contact us at business@mainstream.rs