Exploring Microsoft Dynamics AX as a Business Intelligence Platform

Just six numbers (well, maybe five or eight) are all companies need to understand to help make their business intelligence and financial and accounting reporting needs clearer.

So said Dan Fine at a recent online meeting of the AX User Group's Business Intelligence Special Interest Group.

Fine is the managing partner of Microsoft partner Fine Solutions, which just merged with Autonomix to create a new Microsoft Business Solutions and SharePoint consulting and services organization. Fine is CEO of the new company, which will continue to operate as Fine Solutions.

[Editor's note: For the latest thinking on reporting and business intelligence, don't miss our free virtual conference, Decisions Spring 2011, live June 14 to 17]

A key problem is that too much data is stored in people's heads, in Excel spreadsheets, and in legacy systems that don't talk to any other systems or in isolated silos

"So how do companies get this information and how do they extract it? How do they put it into a similar format and how do they put it into an Excel Pivot Table and deliver it to executives so that they have time to review and act on it?" Fine asked. "Unfortunately this is the state of most businesses. It is disconnected information. The systems that we put in are great at sucking out information but they give a really poor return on information. That has been commonplace everywhere."

Fine said he was reminded of Martin Rees's book "Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe," which says ...