Highlands and
Islands Enterprise (HIE) is reaping the benefits of a
new business reporting system that is allowing it to manage their
service provision more effectively and analyse and understand the
impact of their activity.
HIE is the Scottish Government’s economic and community
development agency for a diverse region which covers more than half
of Scotland. HIE aims to build sustainable economic growth in all
parts of the Highlands and Islands, and delivers its services
through area teams located from Lerwick in Shetland to Lochgilphead
in Argyll.
As part of a general IT upgrade, HIE decided to review and
improve its existing
business intelligence (BI) infrastructure to Cognos 8. Working
with specialist BI software supplier Morgan Benjamin, HIE ran
internal workshops to fully explain the potential gains from the
new software and a strategy was put into place to create the new
environment.
Commented Andy Sarjeant, Project Manager, “Morgan Benjamin
worked closely with us to understand our business and our need for
both accurate and clearly presented data. Their work has had a
significant impact on our business, transferring knowledge in how
to exploit the potential of Cognos 8 to staff in both information
systems and business teams.”
Reporting now caters for all types of reports, from simple
project lists to high volume billings and high impact business
dashboards. Users have the ability to create reports containing
any number of report objects including charts, cross tabs, and
lists as well as non-BI components such as images, logos and live
embedded applications that can be linked to the information. These
objects allow organisations to extend the boundaries of traditional
reporting by giving them new ways to view business performance.
A single ‘website’ approach to reporting was taken whereby an
entry point dashboard displayed high level charts and information
which could be mined to expose subsequent dashboards. Links acted
as an intuitive roadmap where novices could easily navigate to
reach the data required.