Project Description
The Scottish National Investment Bank (“the Bank”), Scotland’s first development investment bank, were using Power BI to report on investment data contained in their Salesforce instance. Whilst using Power BI, they found several reports were growing in popularity and becoming increasingly difficult to manage.
Bridgeall worked with the team to provide advice and guidance on best practice, as well as assistance with data modelling and report development to ensure the team had confidence to enhance their reporting processes and effectively leverage the capabilities of Power BI.
“We had existing Power BI development capabilities within the team but were starting to reach the limits of knowledge as requirement complexity increased. As reporting demands continued to grow within the Bank, I identified that a more strategic approach to data modelling and report development was required to avoid data issues in future.
Working with Bridgeall, we agreed the scope from the outset and the collaborative approach focused on quick wins and knowledge transfer rather than prolonged analysis and blueprints. This meant that priority requirements could be delivered during the engagement, with handover guidance and samples provided for future reference.
Bridgeall’s expertise meant that results were immediate, and the Bank team gained the required confidence and foundational knowledge to build against in future. The engagement worked exactly as I’d hoped.” – Stuart McLaughlin, Head of Information Technology and Facilities, Scottish National Investment Bank.
About Scottish National Investment Bank
Based in Edinburgh, the Scottish National Investment Bank is Scotland’s first development investment bank, wholly owned by the Scottish Ministers on behalf of the people of Scotland. The Bank is an impact investor, investing in businesses and projects connected to Scotland to deliver long term, patient debt, or equity investment where the private market is failing to provide the support businesses and projects require to grow. Their missions include supporting Scotland’s transition to Net Zero, building communities and promoting equality, as well as harnessing innovation to enable people to flourish.
Challenges facing Scottish National Investment Bank
The Scottish National Investment Bank were using Salesforce to manage their investment opportunity pipeline. Power BI was leveraged to develop reports and visualisations against this data, and these were growing in popularity and dependency within the business. They additionally had a roadmap of future reporting they wanted to deliver, as well as integrating data from their Investment Management and Portfolio Management systems.
Despite being familiar with the solution, the Scottish National Investment Bank were looking to ensure that the reporting processes would scale, and the Power BI solution was in the best place from a governance standpoint. The team wanted to further their knowledge and approach to the solution ensuring they were following best practices. There were also several challenges around process and approach with their Salesforce CRM system and how data was captured within it.
To ensure the Bank was in the best place moving forward, we identified our Power BI Quickstart process as the best solution for the business.
We started off with a discovery workshop to learn more about the teams’ requirements, goals, objectives, and current set up. This consisted of reviewing existing dashboards and reports; focusing on what was being used the most. This included Power BI setup – ingestion, data models, and visualisations, before we started looking at the governance aspects.
We then pulled together requirements and the Power BI assessment to help us create some guidelines and steps forward around the wider data strategy and governance.
Bridgeall worked with the team to produce a data model which would support various visualisations. One example would be exception reporting. We found that when collating monthly reports, the team were taking data from an Excel sheet and going through this manually to catch any errors. This process would take hours and result in wasted time. Exception reporting helped to catch any potential errors and save time the team could apply to other areas within the business.
Our Power BI Quickstart provided the team with a comprehensive findings report. This findings report included an assessment of the existing set up with a list of recommendations and risks within their current set up. From our thorough review the team realised the following benefits across the business:
- We helped the Scottish National Investment Bank save time on reporting and processes.
- The review helped to give the team a base to scale. With best practices in place, the Bank could start building on the processes they had in place.
- The team are now more confident and have the knowledge to take the system and scale it.
Looking to get started with Power BI? We can help with Power BI Quickstart
Bridgeall is a Microsoft Gold partner for data platform and data analytics. We have experience helping organisations do more with their data. Our Quickstart approach is broken into two main phases:
- A full strategy, governance and review of approach
- A health check of existing deployments
Our comprehensive review ensures your Power BI deployment is fully optimised and meets your approach. We also include advice and guidance around how best to improve your data strategy and governance. If you’re looking for more information about Power BI, contact us about Quickstart and one of our team members will be in touch.
