The banking industry in the contemporary society works diligently towards utilizing the best technology to carry out their daily activities. The success of a bank is premised on various factors including its decision making skills and the ability to adopt the most current technology that can easily accommodate future changes. Pan Asia Bank in Sri Lanka has for several years shown a progressive growth since it was started in 1995 (Millennium information technologies, 2015). Currently, the bank has 80 branches in various parts of Sri Lanka. It provides financial services such as credit card systems, pawning, exchange services, and margin trading among others. Banks adopt various systems in their business intelligence solution with some opting to utilize in house applications while others use universal applications.
BI report system at Pan Asia Bank
The current business intelligence system utilized by Pan Asia Bank utilizes in house applications such as Oracle, IBM and open source (Kumudini, 2011). Although the Pan Asia Bank has utilized this BI solution for some time now, the ever evolving technological world makes the system inflexible. Decision making is a crucial aspect in banking management and any mistake may be disastrous to a point of insolvency. It is, therefore, important to ensure that the BI system that the bank utilizes can be easily accommodated my various devices including mobile phones, which are now overtaking computer use. With the in house application BI reporting system that the bank is still using, many people are confined to accessing data using a computer hence inconveniencing them when they are out of office and away from a computer.
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The system does not match the current mobile phone technology and this call for a change in the system to one that can use mobile phones. Furthermore, the bank’s system lacks programmer source code and this makes it difficult for users to get in-depth understanding of it. Given these among other limitations on the use of the current BI reporting system, there is need to have a more advanced and flexible system. To achieve this, I recommend the introduction of SQL Server 2016 reporting services system.
Merits of adopting SQL Server BI reporting system
SQL Server 2016 reporting system presents an effective way of report deployment and management. Unlike the current application use by the bank, SQL server provides a flexible system that not only works well with the current technology but also allows for future modification (Hughes, 2016). SQL server 2016 is an upgrade of the 2008 version that has been widely used in business intelligence reporting. The 2016 version provides a wide range of advantages that the bank can now be able to do a wide range of analyses that the current system could not provide.
First, the SQL Server 2016 provides a data warehouse that is easy to update and provides a support that operational analytics can be deployed (Underwood, 2015). Furthermore, this BI system provides a polybase feature that allows users to access file data and make queries without moving data location. This allows the bank to have its data well organized. With banks having the most sensitive information, this feature will allow the users to access and keep data in their original forms. As the bank continues to grow each and every day, the current available data requires a system that can handle volumes without failure. SQL Server 2016 is the most appropriate as it has high performance when utilizing large models (Underwood, 2015; Hughes, 2016). It also provides for deletion and creation of security access, which the current system barely handles.
Secondly, SQL Server 2016 comes with features that create well organized reports. Reporting platforms that are currently utilized by companies and institutions aims at presenting their customers with the information in the best format and this has enabled them outcompete their rivals. Paginated reports have been used as a standard for of organizations’ documents and individuals responsible have had to take time to produce specific document layout (Muti, 2016). Banks have not been exceptional as the in house BI system currently used in Pan Asia Bank requires manual designing of reports. The SQL 2016 Server provides a revolution on the reporting system to help manage and deploy reports. It automatically produces the paginated reports using streamlined user interface. The parameters in the report can be easily customized and placed in position of choice. The system also provided high dots per inch support for scaling. These features will make the report making process a simple task in the bank, hence increasing the employees’ efficiency.
The other reason why SQL Server 2016 should be introduced in Pan Asia Bank to replace the current system is that it allows for mobile reports unlike the existing BI reporting system. The system allows for optimized and interactive reports that users can be able to access using mobile devices such as tablets and Smartphones (Microsoft.com, 2016b). By using this reporting system, the bank will be able to provide mobile reports that consist of pictures such as comparison and time charts, custom maps, and tree maps. Furthermore, the mobile reports can be connected to diverse data sources such as tabular data and also allows for publishing of mobile reports on the reporting services website. Other features that are available in this BI reporting system include pinning of mobile reports in power BI mobile application, SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint mode support among others.
SQL Server 2016 provides a web portal that carries all the reports made, whether paginated or mobile. Embedding of reports is easily done through the iframe feature along with the parameters that define the reports URL (Microsoft.com, 2016b). This system best suits the latest browsers such as Edge, Chrome and Safari. The reports web portal provides features that help in monitoring essential trends and metrics at a go. The key performance indicators as well as reports of interest can be indicated as favorites and viewed at a glance (Muti, 2016). The bank can even customize the web portal by introducing its color theme and logo. The reports made using the SQL server reporting system can be easily exported. The system is built with a Microsoft PowerPoint format that can export normal PPTX format report (Microsoft.com, 2016b). Remote printing is also enabled using the introduction of PDF that works in a variety of browsers. This implies that downloads are no longer limited. On top of this, manual control of printing can be engaged by an administrator to restrict printing by the client.
The shift working schedules of bank employees on several occasions cause transition problems as systems need to log out the previous user before signing in the new one. This is also the case when new employees join the institution and when others leave. SQL Server 2016 provides a platform where subscriptions can be easily managed. The platform has disable and enable user interface choices that allows for quick and easy subscriptions. Furthermore, the disable option subscription does not lose the user properties and can be enabled at any time (Hernandez, 2016). The native mode and the SharePoint support the subscription description by incorporating report descriptions every time a new subscription is made. The system also allows for subscription owner change as the availability of an enhanced user interface allows for quick changes to be made. Unlike other systems that require the use of a script to make the changes, SQL Server 2016 allows these changes through the user interface (safaricom.com, 2016 b). This subscription change in the bank is a common practice that is done on daily basis. Introduction of this reporting system will, therefore, be a means to do away with inconveniences experienced during transitions.
Finally, adoption of this reporting system will help ease any future changes that may need to be incorporated in the service reporting system. With this platform, the future roadmap is clear (Muti, 206). With all the advancements made on the platform, the predicted future business trends in technology are well catered for.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the SQL Server 2016 is the best service reporting BI platform that the Pan Asia Bank should adopt as a replacement of its in house BI system. It is an enterprise-ready system that will allow the bank to achieve it business objectives with ease. As a certified business intelligence system, the bank will be able to take advantage of its ability to provide an access to data in any location as well as its scalability. The system also provides tools that are familiar and requires no intense training of the users. Furthermore, SQL server 2016 has a functionality that activates the hybrid BI where a user can be able to access on-premised cloud data without moving them (Adhikari, 2016). This ensures data accuracy as the original form of the data is not interfered with.
The ever increasing amount of data in the bank can be easily compiled using this platform since its new features allows for transformation of complex data into a form that the user can easily analyze and understand. This is achieved through creation of data models that can be easily interpreted (Microsoft, 2016a). Furthermore, the platform produces modern reports for both paginated and mobile forms. The fact that this system supports the use of mobile phones makes it the ideal system as the world is moving towards the use of tablets and mobile phones. Other than these, the system allows the user to access favorite report in a single web portal.
References
Adhikari, R. (2016). Microsoft challenges oracle with SQL Server 2016. Data Management.
Branscombe, M. (2016). What CIOs need to know about SQL Server 2016 . Retreieved from <http://www.cio.com/article/3098004/database-administration/what-cios-need-to-know-about-sql-server-2016.html/>
Hernandez, P. (2016). SQL Server 2016 reporting services go mobile, power Bi tells stories. Eweek, 1.
Hughes, J. (2016). Will SQL Server 2016 stretch database help your business? Information-Management.Com, 1.
Kumudini, A. (2011). Management information system . Retrieved from <http://www.slideshare.net/kumudusjp/management-information-system-10586625/>
Microsoft. Com (2016). What's New in Reporting Services (SSRS). SQL Server 2016 . Retrieved from <https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms170438.aspx/>
Microsoft. com (2016a). SQL Server business intelligence. Retrieved from <https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/sql-business-intelligence/>
Millennium Information Technologies. (2015). Pan Asia Bank revolutionary core banking platform powered by MillenniumIT. Retrieved from <http://www.millenniumit.com/news/pan-asia-bank-revolutionary-core-banking-platform-powered-by-millenniumit/>
Muti, R. (2016 April 5). Deliver modern reports with SQL Server 2016 reporting services . Retrieved from <https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016/04/07/deliver-modern-reports-with-sql-server-2016-reporting-services/>
Underwood, J. (2015, June 3). What is coming in SQL Server 2016 for business intelligence. SQL Server BI Blog . Retrieved from <http://sqlmag.com/blog/what-coming-sql-server-2016-business-intelligence/>
