Do we need a BI platform?

Often not. If you have Power BI or reporting inside your ERP, the problem is usually the data reaching it rather than the tool displaying it.

Why do our reports disagree?

Usually definitions rather than errors. Finance and operations count the same event at different moments and both are internally consistent.

How current can the numbers be?

Depends on the systems underneath. Some update live, some batch overnight, a few can't beat daily without real expense. We'll tell you which before you budget.

Can't we just use spreadsheets?

You already are, and it works until the person who built it leaves. The spreadsheet isn't the problem; it being undocumented and unowned is.

AliveCommerce / What we do / Applications

Data and business intelligence

By the time month-end closes, the month is over. The numbers describe a period you can no longer influence, and half the effort went into assembling them. The reporting isn't late because people are slow. It's late because the data lives in four places.

EngagementDefined project, FBSC

First phase4 to 8 weeks

Built backwards fromA decision, not a data source

Talk to us about this What drives the cost

Fixed budgetAgreed before work starts. Scope flexes, the number doesn’t.

No vendor pays usNo commissions, referral fees or markup. Ever.

You own everythingCode, documentation, credentials — throughout, not at the end.

Nearly 20 years2,000+ projects for 500+ organizations, from SOHO to Fortune 1000.

What's included.

Scoped and priced up front. Exclusions written as explicitly as inclusions.

Data integration and consolidation

Automated extraction and reconciliation across the systems that each hold part of the picture.

Definition and governance

Agreeing what a shipment, an order or a customer actually means. Usually the harder half and the more valuable one.

Operational dashboards

Built for the decision and the person making it, at a refresh rate that's honest about what the systems can support.

Scheduled and exception reporting

Reports that arrive when they're useful, and alerts when a number moves outside expectations.

Costing and margin analysis

Cost per unit, per job, per shipment, per account — allocated properly rather than split evenly.

Board and funder reporting

Roll-ups that assemble themselves rather than consuming a week of somebody's quarter.

How we approach it.

In this order, because doing them out of order is how these go wrong.

Start from the decision

What are you trying to decide, how often, and what would change your mind? Reports built backwards from a decision get used.

Settle the definitions

Conflicting reports are usually both correct and counting different things. Publishing an agreed definition fixes more than any dashboard.

Fix the plumbing once

Automated extraction and reconciliation is the bulk of the work and almost all of the durable value.

Keep it narrow at first

One report people rely on daily beats twelve nobody opens. We'd rather build one and earn the next.

First phase

4 to 8 weeks

One decision, one reliable report

Usually needs

Integration first

The reporting is the easy half

Most common trigger

A bad surprise

Something visible only after the fact

Not sure this is what you need?

Tell us what's actually happening and we'll say which part of this applies — or that a different approach fits better, or that you don't need us yet. That last answer is more common than you'd expect.

Get a straight answer Or call 416-639-5876, weekdays 8:30–5:30 ET

What we work with.

Chosen on fit. We take no commission or referral fee from any of them.

Power BILooker StudioMetabaseSQL ServerPostgreSQLPythondbt-style transformsERP and WMS extractsScheduled ETL

If this shouldn't be a project.

Some of this work never really ends. When that's true, we'll say so rather than selling you a project that restarts in three years.

Continuous ownership

Champion1 Foundation

When reporting needs keep changing as the business does. We own the plumbing and adjust the reports as the questions change.

See Foundation

A defined project

Champion1 Manage

Where the systems behind the reporting need day-to-day ownership more than the reporting does.

See Champion1

Straight answers.

Start the Conversation.

No qualification questionnaire. No nurture sequence. A person reads it and replies within a business day — and tells you plainly if we're not the right fit.

01A person reads itNot a scoring model. It goes to whoever would actually do the work.

02A reply within a business dayUsually a question or two rather than a calendar link.

03A conversation, not a pitchTwenty to ninety minutes. No deck, no slides.

04Then, only if it's warrantedA scope or assessment with a price attached before any work starts.

Prefer to talk first? 416-639-5876 · [email protected]

About data and business intelligence

Three fields. We'll ask the rest on the call.

Related.

Articles are matched by tag; services, capabilities and programs are curated.

Tell us what's breaking.

We'll tell you roughly what this costs, how long it takes, and whether it's worth doing at all — including when the honest answer is that you don't need us.

Start the Conversation

Knowledge and process

Applications and data

Customer and web

Browse by symptom instead

The structure

Continuous ownership

Before you commit

Start with one problem

Priority sectors

Also

Or by situation

Not sure you fit?

Reading

Most read

Proof

Nobody owns the application layer