08 Jan
I am sure you have already encountered some website where after opening it, chatbot appears on the right side of the screen, prompting you to start chatting with it. Do these tools have a place in internal reporting?
If you are a fan of new technologies, AI, and automation, you may support chatbots as they are already working, and they are a manifestation of some tasks being taken over by machines. But do they bring benefits in internal reporting?
Chatbots are not for financial controllers
A chatbot would never be agile enough to be able to fulfill all the requests of the financial controller. But I do see a value for having a chatbot available to a manager asking about the performance of some specific product. Current versions of chatbots would not have a problem with retrieving such information and presenting it to the user.
For now, Koabo has a substitute for a chatbot within its Power BI reports. There is a page of the report that shows you a textual analysis of each part of a profit and loss statement. It prioritizes showing essential accounts and tells you whether you are performing better or worse in comparison with the last year, budget, and forecast. The only difference from a real chatbot is that you do not have to send a message to get a reply – you work with filters in a report.
Chatbots and What-If analysis
Another use of chatbots is in What-If analysis. Just imagine asking your bot a question like “How high would be my profit in 2020 if the price of product XY were 100 EUR per piece?” and a chatbot would reply within few seconds with a complete analysis. This functionality is on the radar in the development of Koabo, and we are considering adding it in the future.
What do you think about the benefits of chatbots in internal reporting? Would you be interested in using them? I would be happy to hear your ideas. You can contact me at richard.jahoda_ml@grinex.cz.
