@spire Developing a Business Analytics package for SME’s Jack Cribben [1], Systems Analyst Intern...
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@spire Developing a Business Analytics package for SME’s Jack Cribben [1] , Systems Analyst Intern (3 rd year Msci Theoretical Physics) The Finished Package As previously mentioned, the Analytics package contains five sections: • Customers – each customer has a dashboard which details all the most important information such as profitability, average pay days and business category. There is also 3 graphs which show different aspects of a customers worth to the business over the previous year • Products – this shows a list of products which also includes the available stock, number of orders this year and gross profit. If you click on a specific product, you can also see the profitability as sold at different prices. • League Table – this ranks customers by a score which is based on turnover, profitability, average pay days and whether or not the customer is on direct debit. Each customer is given a Gold, Silver or Bronze categorization based on their score. • Forecast – this uses both existing sales data from customers and also data collected from prospective customers to produce a sales forecast for a given period. • Query Builder – allows you to construct SQL-style queries to produce detailed reports. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Online Lubricants, Queen Mary University of London and SEPnet. This project was part-funded by a SEPnet bursary. I would also like to give a special thanks to both my supervisor Peter Blacklock 2 for his advice, tutelage and counsel throughout the project and to John Collings for allowing me to be part of @spire. Design and Development Once the initial research and analysis had been completed, each component of the package had to be individually constructed before the development could begin. It was decided that the Analytics should be split into five sections – customers, products, forecast, query builder and a league table. Each of these sections is described in much more detail later. The development and coding was largely carried out by LiteBreeze, an India-based web development company, so it was essential to keep in close contact with them. In order to keep all communications in one place, we used a project management app called Basecamp. Research With little-to-no business experience, the initial part of the project involved a large amount of research – both internal and external. The product was being developed in-house by Online Lubricants and also being used by employees so I conducted a number of interviews with managers and salespeople from across the company to get an understanding of what they need from an Analytics package. The results of these interviews were recorded and compiled in excel spreadsheets and then cross referenced with the specifications of competitor products such as Base and OnePage. @spire is a combined CRM and BI Analytics package that works in real time with Sage 50 accounting software. It uses an API to integrate pre-existing Sage data into @spire and then uses a number of different automated sales and forecasting tools to give businesses a clear, simple and detailed view of how they are performing. I was recruited to help with the design and development of the Analytics package as well as to give insight as to how the statistical tools could be improved. The homepage of the @spire web application including the ‘homepage dashboard’ which I helped design The header for the Analytics package showing the five main sections The customer analytics dashboard showing the data row and one of the graphs The sortable list of products with information on each one Summary The analytics package is now completed and fully operational with @spire now for sale as a Sage addition. Having come into the internship with almost no business knowledge, I feel as though I have really developed an understanding of the day-to-day running of a company. Throughout my time working on @spire, I was given the opportunity to get involved in other aspects of the project development such as digital marketing, advertising and price analysis. [1] Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, E1 4NS, [email protected] [2] Online Lubricants, 11 Lea Road, Waltham Abbey, EN9 4AS The top 3 customers in the League Table
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@spireDeveloping a Business Analytics package for SME’s
Jack Cribben[1], Systems Analyst Intern (3rd year Msci Theoretical Physics)
The Finished Package
As previously mentioned, the Analytics package contains five sections:
• Customers – each customer has a dashboard which details all the most important information such as profitability, average pay days and business category. There is also 3 graphs which show different aspects of a customers worth to the business over the previous year
• Products – this shows a list of products which also includes the available stock, number of orders this year and gross profit. If you click on a specific product, you can also see the profitability as sold at different prices.
• League Table – this ranks customers by a score which is based on turnover, profitability, average pay days and whether or not the customer is on direct debit. Each customer is given a Gold, Silver or Bronze categorization based on their score.
• Forecast – this uses both existing sales data from customers and also data collected from prospective customers to produce a sales forecast for a given period.
• Query Builder – allows you to construct SQL-style queries to produce detailed reports.
AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Online Lubricants, Queen Mary University of London and SEPnet. This project was part-funded by a SEPnet bursary.
I would also like to give a special thanks to both my supervisor Peter Blacklock2 for his advice, tutelage and counsel throughout the project and to John Collings for allowing me to be part of @spire.
Design and DevelopmentOnce the initial research and analysis had been completed, each component of the package had to be individually constructed before the development could begin. It was decided that the Analytics should be split into five sections – customers, products, forecast, query builder and a league table. Each of these sections is described in much more detail later.
The development and coding was largely carried out by LiteBreeze, an India-based web development company, so it was essential to keep in close contact with them. In order to keep all communications in one place, we used a project management app called Basecamp.
ResearchWith little-to-no business experience, the initial part of the project involved a large amount of research – both internal and external. The product was being developed in-house by Online Lubricants and also being used by employees so I conducted a number of interviews with managers and salespeople from across the company to get an understanding of what they need from an Analytics package. The results of these interviews were recorded and compiled in excel spreadsheets and then cross referenced with the specifications of competitor products such as Base and OnePage.
@spire is a combined CRM and BI Analytics package that works in real time with Sage 50 accounting software. It uses an API to integrate pre-existing Sage data into @spire and then uses a number of different automated sales and forecasting tools to give businesses a clear, simple and detailed view of how they are performing.
I was recruited to help with the design and development of the Analytics package as well as to give insight as to how the statistical tools could be improved.
The homepage of the @spire web application including the ‘homepage dashboard’ which I helped design
The header for the Analytics package showing the five main sections
The customer analytics dashboard showing the data row and one of the graphs
The sortable list of products with information on each one
SummaryThe analytics package is now completed and fully operational with @spire now for sale as a Sage addition.
Having come into the internship with almost no business knowledge, I feel as though I have really developed an understanding of the day-to-day running of a company. Throughout my time working on @spire, I was given the opportunity to get involved in other aspects of the project development such as digital marketing, advertising and price analysis.
[1] Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, E1 4NS, [email protected]
[2] Online Lubricants, 11 Lea Road, Waltham Abbey, EN9 4AS
The top 3 customers in the League Table
