I write this with a beautiful if somewhat distracting view of the same snow-capped mountains that much of the world is currently watching. At this very moment, athletes located all over this region are giving it their all as they attempt to be the best in their sport.

The observant will notice how the changes in technology have changed the experience for both the competitors and the audience. Viewers benefit from the new fiber-optic communications tools that the broadcasters employ. The event organizers utilize the latest in weather forecasting to micro-managing events, while the athletes use technology for everything from training enhancement to improving their gear and even their clothing!

Time is of the essence!

True competitive advantage however refers to the utilization of tools and/or techniques that are exclusively yours.

While Monarch software isn’t rare or used by only a select group, it’s not exactly widely used either; at least not yet. Really, how many people do you personally know that use Microsoft Windows? Right: probably almost everyone that you know. And how many of them simply know of Monarch, much less use it regularly? I feared as much… but I’m doing what I can to change that!

So there’s enough time for you to make Monarch a factor in your competitive advantage strategy. Every business that aims to be profitable has, or should have, a competitive advantage. If they don’t then they’re playing a losing game.

Business intelligence software has been high on the priority list for many organizations for some time now. In fact, regardless of your industry, your competitors probably employ some kind of BI solution. But since, as we’ve already discussed, they’re probably not using Monarch, what do they use?

Odds are that they’ve implemented a system with “all the bells and whistles”. It also probably came complete with a huge price tag and massive training and ongoing support requirements. Just like the folks at Jurassic Park, they spared no expense.

Turn their decisions against them like raging dinosaurs. Implement a solid and completely function BI strategy with Monarch at its foundation to save costs not just at the initial deployment but at every step along the way afterward as well.

You say you want a revolution

You can start your BI revolution by installing but a single copy of the desktop software. Then, as your needs increase, you can choose to install more licenses or move to a network installation.  In time, you’ll have a library of individual BI tools (Monarch models and projects) at your disposal.

As the BI needs of your organization grow, you can leverage those tools by using them, with other more expensive (but not that expensive) and powerful Datawatch solutions like Datawatch Dashboards, Monarch Data Pump, Monarch BI Server and Monarch BI Enterprise Server.

The time is now

The clock is ticking. There’s only so much time left before your competition discovers what you now know: an affordable, powerful, useful and even easy to learn and use business intelligence solution is within your reach.

Put yourself on the winning team. Make the medal-winning decision to excel with Monarch.

I rarely watch the late night talk shows, but when such a gem comes along, well, it’s time to turn lemons into lemonade. While I was focusing on completing the 30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler series, NBC kindly provided us with a rare opportunity to learn from their disastrous mess and expensive experiment.

Know what to do next

Don’t wait until your current show/host (system/data) has run its course. To take it to another level, begin taking steps now to replace it with a new show/system, or likely better yet, extend the useful life of the functional, if struggling, show/system by implementing a new host/data tool.

Consider adding Monarch to your overall information system, or by upgrading your ten year old Monarch software that doesn’t let you take advantage of your current MS Office software.

Misplaced Trust is Expensive

In his last episodes, Conan racked up some big bills by playing songs that required costly royalty payments, and joked with the audience about stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down. Yes, it probably made for good television, arguably some of his best, but at what cost to NBC and General Electric?

As a Monarch user, or as a manager of Monarch users, know that all that easy to use analytical ability carries with it a lot of responsibility. Be aware that Monarch can take full advantage of secure systems in terms of both acquiring data and sharing it.

Also, Monarch v10 can utilize your digital signatures so that the recipients of your Monarch work will know that they can trust your work too.

You’ve Got to Progress

Back in 2004, NBC promised Conan the Tonight Show, presumably to keep him from leaving the network at the time. But now that has happened anyway.

It’s one thing to build a couple of rudimentary models to convert static data locked up tight in reports into dynamic data, but what else are you going to do with it? The opportunities are endless. A good ERP system is nice, but a good ERP system paired with analysts who are skilled with Excel and Monarch… now we’re talking!

Further, as a manager, recognize that you need to allow your talented Monarch users to progress or you’ll risk their moving on from your firm just as quickly as Conan left NBC.

Be Consistent

The troubles started when NBC launched Leno’s new show in the 10 pm time slot. They should have predicted that they had only one and not two audiences for a talk show at that time of the day. The ratings, and the revenue dollars that follow ratings, suffered as each show had a cannibalizing negative impact on the other, which affected not just the network but perhaps more importantly, its affiliates.

Use Monarch to combine disparate information sources and repackage the data into any presentation you want, as long as you’re delivering that presentation consistently to your audience. If there’s a change in its once-familiar structure, help your audience by pointing it out and cite concrete examples when describing why this is better than what they were accustomed to, if they hadn’t been apprised of it somehow in advance.

And now, here’s Monarch!

Make a wise and informed decision to ensure a long and successful run with all of your information systems. The process of acquiring, packaging and converting data into actionable information shouldn’t turn into a messy and expensive fight. In fact, with a little extra effort, you can transform your data into a calling card of sorts for your outstanding skills that are as instantly recognizable as a celebrity host.

So stop working for your data, and make your data work for you. Tonight, choose to excel with Monarch.

Over the last few months I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the most recent addition to Vancouver’s radio dial, Shore 104, and their focus on “Roots, Rock & Rhythm”. It’s great stuff, and today it provides both the soundtrack and the basis for this last entry in the 30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler series.

If you’re one of the many who have accompanied me on this journey to improve our skills, we’ve covered a lot of ground over the last while. If we can take a moment to recap the series, by day:

1. 30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler: the series is launched, and we decided to plan our adventures and projects.
2. Learn to Build Traps: a review of the tools available for building data extraction templates.
3. Understanding Template Types: a review of the different types of extraction templates and the purpose of each.
4. Extracting Data from Multi-column Regions: a discussion of how Monarch can handle newspaper style columns within a report.
5. Defining Fields in Monarch: getting comfortable with Monarch’s data types, and the tools available for locating and isolating data within a report.
6. Monarch’s Rich History: a recap of the resources available to learn tips and tricks about Monarch, and reasons that you’d want to do so.
7. Breaking All The Rules: how, and why, to customize the defaults provided for our Monarch environment.
8. Mastering Monarch’s Calculated Fields: developing or reinforcing our knowledge of the different types of fields that Monarch offers to add to our extracted data.
9. Mastering Monarch’s Table Window Controls and Layout: using the display and navigation options for maximum benefit.
10. Employing Functions for Specialized Tasks: how to put Monarch’s internal functions to work for us.
11. Monarch’s Address Block Wizard: transforming detailed and difficult to handle address data magically with Monarch.
12. Finding Critical Data with Monarch: building easy to manage filters to isolate key information.
13. A to Z Monarch: how and why to build and use multiple sort definitions within a single model.
14. A Summary Synopsis: an overview of Monarch data aggregation facility.
15. A Challenging Reinforcement: a real-life challenge that required the implementation of many of the previously discussed concepts to resolve.
16. Creating New Opportunities With Monarch: compelling reasons to combine disparate data sources with Monarch.
17. Share Your Story with Monarch: in order to distribute our data with others, we’d best be well versed in exporting it to many different formats
18. Reusable Monarch: avoid duplicating effort when building Monarch models by incorporating aspects of models that have already been completed.
19. Embedding Documentation for Better Monarch Models: clarify reasons and intentions by making models self-documenting.
20. Monarch is the Solution to Fiscal Year Troubles: capitalize on Monarch’s flexibility to easily report periodic data any way that we please.
21. Easy Ways to Benefit from Automating Monarch: some of the simpler methods with which we can automate the work that we perform with Monarch.
22. 10 Ways to Improve a Monarch Model: a selection of potential enhancements to any Monarch model.
23. How Excel Can Make You a Better Monarch Modeler: take advantage of Excel’s complement of interactive features and functions to add value to models.
24. Search for Opportunities to Excel with Monarch: expanding our horizons by actively seeking challenges provided by others within our groups.
25. Learn to Recognize the Impossible: some of the options available to us when we encounter challenges for which we have no immediate answers.
26. Consult with Peers and Become a Better Monarch Modeler: learn from the modeling works of others.
27. Learn, Lead, and Understand: teaching new Monarch users what it’s all about reinforces our strengths and exposes our deficiencies.
28. Focus Your Command of Monarch: applying everything that we know about building Monarch solutions to develop dashboard reporting systems.
29. Learn to Program Excel to Become a Better Monarch Modeler: leverage our knowledge of programming and automation to build better Monarch models.

All of this brings us to the final entry in the series, which I hope will make it abundantly obvious to you – if you have any doubt at all – that you’ve already become a better Monarch modeler. Enough preamble. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Your Task for Today

While there still other ways that you can become a better Monarch modeler, I’ve selected the ones that I’d felt were most important to share with you. Today you’ll discover the importance of the last idea for yourself.

Go back in time and revisit your own roots. Have a look at your initial Monarch models, and if it’s of any current benefit, use what you now know to improve them.

What kinds of things do you do differently now then you did then, if anything? Do you have better ways to build traps? Do you take advantage of more of Monarch’s features now? Are you doing more now within Monarch to analyse the data that you compile with your newer models than you did before?

You’ve come a long way from what was likely a humble beginning with the software, and I’m certain that you’re more in control of Monarch than ever before and are ready to take full advantage of everything that Monarch offers, or have a better understanding of what that entails.

Monarch Rocks!

I’ve had a lot of fun developing this series, and I hope that you’ve found it to be beneficial and perhaps even entertaining.

The work doesn’t end here though, I’m afraid, now that you’ve become a better Monarch modeler. In fact, it just begins anew. But you should now have a solid foundation to accomplish whatever it is that you personally need to accomplish. Additionally, it ought to be much easier for you to adapt to the updates in the software tools that we use.

Well done! You’re now prepared for a future in which you can always excel with Monarch.