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[Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] right all right folks hello and welcome to new edition of talk power bi today we have some special guests and a special topic so today we were talking.
About uh we're not talking about business groups hold on let me fix that all right there that's the right title role of it versus business groups in this new world of self-service bi and power bi so we have a guest danny martens and raul gimenez and you're going to be able to find links to their linkedin profiles in the description below so if you enjoy this discussion with these awesome guys then go ahead and connect with them they.
Are both power bi professionals and are looking to serve businesses worldwide all right so uh let's say hello to folks who are on i see mathias uh hello tyus good to see you again is definitely a regular on our show and uh yeah so if you're joining us live just uh say hello in the chat and uh let us know where you are joining us from.
All right cool so i see some new folks joining on so yep just say hello uh robert is certainly here he's gonna be monitoring the chat if you have any questions around this topic then queue them up and be nice robert because he'll be picking your questions in the end we're going to save some time for q a all right so i see folks joining in again folks drop it in hello i'll come back and um yeah just just make sure i do a shout out to you but let's go ahead and and and i'm pretty keen on diving.
Into our topic here today so danny and rob i'm gonna kick it off by so actually what i have in mind is i want to talk about the old it how it used to be how it unfortunately still is in a lot of companies we'll talk about the new it what does the new what should the new it look like and then we'll talk about the business scripts and there i think they do get great power than before.
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And that's kind of my third topic i want to talk about what does that look like and lastly does
That great power for the business scripts come with great responsibility what is their responsibility going to be in this new world and of course then we'll do some q a reflect all right cool so as i promise i'm going to say hello to everybody so we have adam hello adam hi steve from calgary canada adam adam is here from rally north carolina uh dee walden says hello from columbus ohio nelson peta.He's from lisbon portugal darren says hello from divide colorado mozilla is here hello and welcome folks so let's dive in so again the topic is the role of i.t versus business groups in the new world of power bi and self-service bi and let's kick it off by talking about the old it so what i wrote down here was the you know they're the preservers of the status quo and the first thing that comes to mind.
Is everything that so i've spent most of my life in the business side so guys i'll admit i might be a slightly biased but i've spent some time in it2 so i understand their pain i understand their perspective but still as being part of the business group it still stuck me as odd that anything that was that needed to change i had to submit a change request now now of course people who have worked with it they'll say yeah of course audrey how.
Else would you engage with it but i think that's a fundamental contradiction between business and i.t i t everything is a change request everything needs a justification right i mean everything needs an roi or something needs to clear that hurdle is like oh yeah you know the default is the status quo the default is that oh if you cannot justify a change request no change is going to be made default is everything stays the same.
And it that cannot be like more opposite than the life of a business group because stuff doesn't happen with a change request the copic pandemic did not come in and apply for a change request with all the businesses in the world it just happened right so so yeah business is always changing and of course kogit is kind of an extreme extreme example but it is always changing and yeah you gotta adapt with that it's.
Adapt or die so that's the reality of the business groups but i t it's that change of quest so danny what uh danny let's start off with you what have you seen um the old i.t right i mean how do they tend to think how have you seen that work and does it yeah yeah let's talk about that yeah i think uh i i meet them constantly still we can talk about the new i.t the new.
World of i.t later on of course i also meet them but there's still a lot of dinosaurs out there so to speak but i have been working in i.t departments as well in early years in my career so i to a certain extent i do understand where they come from and they usually have this spaghetti of i.t systems that they need to handle so if they don't go through a proper change request they don't know what is the impact on all the other systems yeah so what i always get when i come to a.
Company and i introduce power bi to them wow they they get scared because they think oh it's a new system you need a data warehouse how are we going to live through this well i'm thinking there's nothing new i was working with all excel files already for the longest time suddenly i introduced power bi and the whole it department wakes up and that always surprises me suddenly they think there's a new system in the i.t landscape that they need to deal with so i get a lot of pushback always if i.
Introduce power bi and that is my experience with with old id raul uh what have you seen out in the wild out there let me see i agree with that um i've seen both and i i think danny kind of mentioned it because we'll talk about it the new it like everything in life there's pros and cons and there are people so thinking about the old in the sense of people that are very regimental i find that um because they were the.
Ones that had to fix any any problem all the problems and all the headaches
They were very as you said obvious you know like why if it doesn't benefit me if there's no benefit why would i do all these things and i'm the one that later has to get a call at 10 o'clock at night because something isn't working and so um also they can be as we know they're very regimental and this is how things are because systems if they are their main role with system uh distribution it has to be very regimental so you can keep track of it and maintain it and keep it working.Um so yes well as martin danny said um things that i have encountered initially when it's a bad interaction is like hold on a minute no but you're gonna go and change you know the source code you're gonna go to the source data you're gonna go and interact with the system and when telling them no look that we're going to read only data and collect it and go out of you know stay out of your hair it changes i see that very big like hold on a minute so now you're going to be asking me to do these sequel.
Statements to get your information and i have to do this said no and you know it it's a real like you're you're kidding oh this is amazing so you're i'm not going to be getting tickets as you describe that can you please give me a table with this information or and you're not gonna be dealing and moving on changing stuff in the source uh databases so mine is i have had that initial like now hold on a minute get out of my hair too yeah oh no this is great so you can help me.
Um it changes i find it that once you properly explain it yeah it changes the tune and they're like all for it yeah but there is pushback definitely certainly certainly so i i do feel like and of course sometimes i've heard the fear expressed as that oh barbie i is going to make id redundant i think that can be farther from the truth as raul was talking about if anything their their role is more critical in the new landscape but let's talk.
About that that fear for a bit so they they are so they have their systems in place often it has something in place and here comes kind of a new tool that's of concern to them they just want to understand that oh how is it going to change the landscape and and of course as you all talked about that it takes some time to you know to kind of transfer i mean initially it might seem that oh this is.
Just more work for me right and and and unfortunately i think what has happened in the past is it has probably seen this oh new shiny fancy bi tool cycle a few times right i i and i had seen that even as a business user like some new leader would typically come in look at the state of things look at the old uh bi tool that we were using see that it was not working it was never working because everybody was doing export to excel and just going you know right commando from.
There and they say oh this is next the classic excel hell and they'll say oh this can't be you know we're we are you know we're x hundred million dollar organization and this can't be right um so they bring in consultants who give them a nice dog and pony show a nice powerpoint slideshow oh yeah buyer tool and everything is fixed and it goes and does the implementation for many years and at the end of it inevitably it will still export to excel so so maybe that embedded memory is there a generational memory and uh.
Yeah so they they have a lot of concerns about that um so what about some of the other things that i i hear i hear folks talk about which is they always start talking about security and that sort of stuff that hey who's gonna have access that that's often a concern for the old i.t right uh anything else that you see that yeah i just want to kind of dig in it's like what what is going on in their heads.
What are they thinking what are they concerned about what you just said uh abby like for that security are you are you gonna you know are you gonna be playing and and uh damaging my baby you know are you like uh that for me a very simple but thing to say straight up up up front is it's read only we we won't have access to change anything in the system um we are simply once it's as if we're getting a printed out a printout just the raw data from the system don't worry and again we'll be out.
Security is is a big one um having to explain a gateway um sometimes is and going through look we're gonna be connecting from an external source explaining how it is why it is done like that how only people with the the company email can have it and uh anyway he has to approve it so it goes hand in hand you know i cannot connect to the database unless that user has been given access to it which is i'm sure like one of the first things we all do you know talk to it and say look can you create an email and give it access to the database.
Because we're going to be connecting to it so once those things are explained i have found again there's a change but yes of course those two things more work for me you're going to be another person that thinks that they're going to be sending me 20 tickets a day for things and security and again once once they see one it's there's no security risk and not only that but it's going to take workload and pressure off of them um i have seen i don't know if i've been.
Lucky or not but i have always seen a change even i don't always see pushback hard but when i do it changes yeah so so danny have you seen any other other specific fear and and matthias is talking about what we touched upon too is that at some level they they fear that they're going to become redundant they're going to lose their jobs and well that can be scary i see another fear as well uh avi and that that has to do with with security um.
Is is the confidentiality of the data that you're trying to access that is often a concern to them as well is what i have noticed especially i'm i'm sitting here in europe and and the privacy legislation is huge nowadays so they're always concerned about why do you need access what do you want and as a data analyst right you want to have as much data as possible because you don't know exactly what's out there what connections you can can make connections in the sense the data talking to each other yeah so that's also.
Some sometimes that i really need explanation like rule says and and convincing as well that it's not only that you do read only but also that the data may provide you insights that the the business management can use in the end and that that requires often a lot of convincing as well so and persuasion i have to say so yeah that's definitely there as well that's awesome maybe you said we got some great comments coming in matthias is talking about security always being a big issue um.
It people want full control on prem uh and and yeah uh scott is talking about yet something that raul was mentioning we'll talk about that and yeah brijandra is expressing some frustration with it yeah and darren has this point bi is taking a risk opening up for bi given that they will be held accountable security but folks i want to point out there's another risk as well which is my theory that a company that.
Does not embrace this this bi i mean if you look around at the companies that are successful and the key reason why uber grew so big so fast is the way they were able to leverage their data right so and again even if you look at old school companies right so we have uh members in our power consultant program who are focused on the mining and the resource industry now this is a very old school industry but even there man the smart ones are.
Rapidly adopting this cutting edge bi and of course starts with power bi but then of course i love that's why i love the microsoft path which is that plus then you can go ai and all that sort of stuff so they're adopting that and my theory is that it's not like the companies who don't adopt are gonna fall behind i think they're gonna go extinct because they're gonna be out competed at every step of the way right so if you look at a classic.
Business you know i mean customer acquisition customer retention servicing the customer all of that stuff you're gonna be out competed so so yeah that's that's a risk too if you're not if you're not moving forward if you're staying they're static the ones that are moving forward will surpass you as then yeah yeah that's absolutely yeah so so and we talked about this in the power bi consultant program too and if you look at it from a personal perspective a lot of people are very.
Afraid to take the jump into something new learning something new or you know maybe going from an employee to a consultant and so forth and i say hey definitely weigh risks but there is a risk of not doing anything as well right risk of standing still and in this day and age that might be the biggest risk uh cool so let's uh let's transition a little bit to the new it so these problems seem so uh unsurmountable or is it insurmountable one of those.
That uh right i mean that you know and i start talking with it and they're like oh yeah security how are we gonna ensure that everybody you know nobody who shouldn't have access doesn't get access right because you're going to load all of that data power bi and yes you can talk to them about role level security and so forth but still there they have concerns they have concerns about uh you slowing down the databases you're always saying you know read only access those i know you're going to sold out here on all this sort of stuff right all of that is going on and and frankly.
I don't have an answer to that you know usually when i'm talking to them friendly that's a very tiresome conversation trying to convince them of everything that they're concerned about so i don't do that i i you probably heard me say this i talk about hey if you find yourself in an unwinnable game well you gotta change the game so i i like to change the game and i say you know what all of your concerns are right now i don't say to them but in my mind what i see them trying to do.
Is kind of like you're trying to go on a road trip but you're waiting for all of the traffic signals from here to let's say you're going to portland to be green it's never going to happen and and it doesn't make sense that's not how you go on a road trip right and you go there and let google maps help you right so um so i say hey why don't we do a pilot project like a small group and it starts from there and of course yeah these are real issues i'm not saying they're not but you know as they start working they.
See the value as well they see the value that raul was talking about that it actually makes the job easier it actually makes them look like superstars so let's talk about new it uh raul let's uh start with you so when it does work when you have gotten things started with i.t how does that look like how does it play out it's let me see that nothing over the top nothing crazy it works it works out well what does.
That mean um we explain what we're going to be doing we are given access obviously they have to be involved and it's best to be involved just because it makes everything work they are part of the thing that make sure that everybody that there's a central repository with email addresses for role level security uh see if the company already has security groups or distribution groups in their windows environment setup because those are very important to um set up row level security important no but rather it makes it incredibly easy to deploy.
That gives them and it's not trying to be gimmicky but it makes them realize no we still have control it'll be centralized i think a big fear is from what they've seen before as you were mentioning earlier obvious that things that happen all over the place and there are 20 different versions of things and 20 different ways of doing things they get scared it's like no guys look this is actually the opposite we're going to do a central repository of information and then distribute it to all the reports um that are are being taken from one.
Central place um the role of the security guys it's the companies groups the whatever you guys have decided are the security groups and distribution groups that is what's going to be used you guys are still keeping control uh making sure that uh something what you said about slowing down the system um making sure that we don't do etl or the the refreshes aren't done certain days of the month if the company does backups i've had.
That experience where the company always backs up their data either you know towards the end of the month or the beginning and we know i have an alarm disconnect auto um what do you call it the auto refreshes so it doesn't do anything to the to the system so things like that you know it's it's a key part of of uh any work it is most definitely necessary and that will speed up things uh that anyway so um it's important key to develop a good relationship at the from the get-go yeah that's great so so i definitely.
Hear that yes there's a centralized system but of course there's decentralization as well freely it's always been there i mean which was in the form of excel so besides the central model there are definitely going to be business users and i mean they should be empowered they should be empowered to use power bi as well um where is the balance there how have you seen that evolve uh how do you mean what what part of it.
I i've seen you talk about this system and you work with i.t and there's real local security and everything right but there are going to be business users they're going to say cool this is awesome but i need to do a b and c and i always say that i it can you know meet meet some of the needs but you cannot meet all of the business needs all the time just because it's impossible business just moves too quick and that's why this idea of sell service bi where yeah cool i gave you 80 or something i have the infrastructure which has the core set of reports.