Dominate business complexity with Board: your smart planning partner

Discover how Board is revolutionising business planning with smart, personalised solutions. Learn how to simplify decision-making, improve efficiency, and master the complexity of your business with this innovative tool.

Financial institutions need to be able to take smart, data-driven decisions, both to optimise their internal processes and to offer personalised experiences to their customers.

In this context, Business Intelligence (BI) solutions have become essential tools for transforming data into valuable information. One of these standout solutions is Board, an integrated BI and business performance management platform that is helping large organisations to visualise and manage their information. And it is highly recommended for projects that require a large amount of data and complex variables that may also change over time and require fast calculations.

But what makes Board different from other BI software?

Board is an All-in-One platform: Analysis, Planning and Simulation all in one place

Unlike other traditional BI solutions like Tableau or Power BI, which primarily focus on data visualisation and descriptive analysis, Board offers a comprehensive approach by combining BI functionalities with Corporate Performance Management (CPM) in a single platform. This includes advanced planning, scenario simulation and forecasting capabilities, providing businesses with a complete view of their performance and enabling them to make dynamic adjustments to their plans in real time.

To achieve this, Board relies on three differentiating features that underpin the tool:

1. Motor In-Memory

One of Board’s distinctive technical features is its in-memory engine, which lets it execute complex queries and calculations faster compared to other BI programs.

In our business ecosystem, it was essential to have dedicated engines and the necessary computing power to perform detailed simulations and projections with large volumes of data and databases exceeding 500 million records. Specifically, it has allowed us to reduce the time spent on calculations by 40% compared to the in-house tool we used until now.

This significant improvement is mainly due to the in-memory engine, which relies on creating a dedicated database that processes data directly in RAM, eliminating disk access latencies. Moreover, these calculation engines are ideal for scenarios requiring repeated executions and simulations with large volumes of multidimensional data, enabling immediate data access without the need to run queries on external sources, which often slows down calculations.

Another advantage of the Board engine is its ability to integrate multiple data sources into a single database. This allows centralising all the information and lowers dependence on data availability. Additionally, this functionality helps us perform large-scale simulations with a very low level of granularity, enabling us to analyse vast amounts of data in just a few minutes.

2. Multidimensional modelling

Another key differentiator compared to other tools on the market is the multidimensional modelling. This modelling allows users to analyse data across multiple dimensions by accessing a single cube, which is responsible for storing the information. In turn, adaptability and flexibility are other standout components of this cube architecture, since new dimensions or hierarchies can be added without having to rebuild the data model or create a semantic layer, as required by other BI software.

3. Data Entry

This modelling also allows information to be structured in a highly optimised way, making Board’s exclusive “Data Entry” feature very efficient.

This functionality enables end users to modify data directly on the tool’s screens, with values recalculating in real time. Specifically, when a data point is modified, the engine automatically distributes the changes across all dimensions and hierarchies, ensuring consistency and accuracy. For example, an adjustment to a financial metric immediately affects the subtotals and totals of other dimensions in the data model. This functionality gives it a competitive advantage over other software or Excel, as it turns Board into a fully online, collaborative application. In other words, all modifications are instantly recorded in the tool, ensuring both data integrity and consistent information across the system.

In summary, Board is a valuable tool for projects requiring a platform capable of running both simulations and projections, with high-performance needs — whether due to frequent user activity or the processing power required for large data volumes, as is the case with the CaixaBank group.

Another advantage to consider is the ability for non-technical business users to do data Entry, thanks to its “No-code” approach, as well as the new AI functionalities being integrated, which will enhance productivity, improve analysis and support data-driven decision-making.