Baker Tilly South East Europe creates a data-driven culture with Power BI
About the company
Baker Tilly South East Europe is an accounting and advisory firm and independent member of Baker Tilly International. It operates through 7 offices in 5 countries (Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldova) and employs 430 professionals. Baker Tilly International is one of the leading global accountancy and business advisory networks, providing professional services in both international and regional markets.
The challenge
Baker Tilly had data from its many locations and business divisions consolidated within their corporate ERP solution – SAP Business One. All management reporting was done in an endless table format in static PDF files; sooner rather than later, the organization came to a point where it needed to transform its static and table-like reports into visual and interactive dashboards that keep data up-to-date automatically. The biggest challenge was replicating the developed reporting logic that produced results in a table format to a more graphical and interactive analysis tool and synthesizing raw number data in a more user perceptive way.
”Up to now we had only static reporting and only a few people could export and understand this data. The main issue was that we extracted this information taking us time to explain to managers and all other employees their relevance to them and what tasks needed to be done. We have 5 offices, with each office operating at least 2 companies. To get the consolidated profit and loss report, we needed to run the crystal report about 15 times, taking an hour to run each report, and export in PDF for further distribution.
– Socrates Efstratiou, CFO at Baker Tilly South East Europe
The solution
Baker Tilly was looking for a Microsoft solution so that it could correspond with their Office 365 suite and allow its employees to use SharePoint for upload and Microsoft Teams to share documents without extra connectors, costs, and support by external vendors.
Initially, the organization used Power BI Desktop to develop interactive reports for free. Later on, it enabled them to view real-time numbers online and send them by email to subscribed recipients to follow up on their performance and recommendations for their next actions.
Intelligent Systems equipped Baker Tilly with the capability for dynamic reporting and interactive dashboards based on corporate data residing within the ERP solution. With Power BI, Baker Tilly can easily and swiftly get an overview of the group data by company, organization, country, or partner. Data presentation has improved which facilitates the making of strategic decisions. Baker Tilly`s directors, managers and partners identify KPIs easily thanks to Power BI data.
“Intelligent Systems acted very professionally. Its BI specialists implemented the solution within the agreed timeframe, understanding the financial analysis specifics, and our business needs. Now with Power BI, it is amazing how fast we can conceive data. We can interpret a charted image and utilize the data just in seconds. It transformed the way we operate.
– Socrates Efstratiou, CFO at Baker Tilly South East Europe
The future roadmap
Baker Tilly`s next step is having comprehensive training sessions to help everyone using the solution to attain a full grasp of its functionalities. At this point, 40 regional directors and managers have access to the interactive reports and data. Once Power BI becomes part of their daily routine, Baker Tilly may consider adopting across all departments and levels, along with providing insights for their customers.
“My advice to other companies considering the implementation of a business intelligence tool is to keep it simple and use a program that easily integrates with their existing software systems. If possible, use apps from one vendor.”
– Aristotelis M. Klitou, Regional Head of Operations at Baker Tilly South East Europe.
