Grant Gamble is the director of training at G Com Solutions Limited, a UK company that provides training in Microsoft Power BI and other IT systems. The company runs classes in Power BI at their training centre in Peterborough, as well as sending trainers out to run courses on location for clients.
They offer classes for all levels of Power BI users, from introductions to the software to advanced and even administration courses. They can also help people to get Power BI certification.
Grant, how did you get involved in IT training?
I’ve been involved in IT for about 25 years, in various consultancy, training and development roles. Most of my work in that time has been client driven. When clients have requirements, you fill them. When they have problems, they expect you to solve them. And they look to you to explain how stuff works. So, informal training was part of my role for a long time before I eventually became trained as a trainer and began running formal, classroom training sessions. This was about 15 years ago.
Why are Power BI courses so useful?
Power BI training is useful because it’s such a multi-layered product, with a lot of moving parts. It’s true that Power BI lives up to its billing and delivers true self-service BI. And most people can dive in and put together a few basic reports without any training. But, if everyone in an organization continues in this vein, they run the risk of creating a Power BI tenant which is chaotic and suffers from gross inefficiencies and duplication of effort. Getting key personnel trained on Power BI ensures that your organization can get the most out of the product.
Can everyone benefit from your Power BI courses?
Power BI training can benefit anyone who plans to use the product in the workplace or to add it to their skillset while looking for work. Despite being a powerful, enterprise-level business platform, Power BI can be acquired completely free of charge. Power BI Desktop is totally free, and the Power BI Free online subscription is fine for learning the product. So, having taken a Power BI training course, it is very feasible to continue using the product and creating useful output. This may be in the workplace, or for job-seekers, it may mean putting together a portfolio of Power BI reports to show off their data visualization skills to prospective employers.
How does the training help businesses to improve their operations?
Power BI training can show businesses how to consolidate their data analysis by connecting to all their existing systems and building user-friendly reports. It’s not just database admins and IT specialists who can use Power BI. Personnel in marketing, finance and operations can build reports focusing on their area of the business. Learning Power BI’s wealth of visualization options allows users to communicate key insights to their colleagues in an impactful way. And using Power BI Mobile apps, important dashboards and reports can be shared with the entire organization.
What professions would you say most need to be proficient in this software?
The professions who will be expected to acquire the highest degree of proficiency are data specialists. This would include people with job titles like Business Intelligence Analyst, Data Scientist, Database Developer, Database Administrator, Data Engineer, Data Analytics Manager, Data Security Administrator, and so forth. And I mean by that, both people already in these roles and those who are looking for work. Then we have people whose works involves financial and business analysis; basically, anyone using Excel for data analysis needs to learn how to use Power BI. Then we have anyone in management: heads of departments, H.R. managers, project managers, sales and marketing managers; anyone who relies on timely reporting.
What other programs do you offer training in?
As well as our Microsoft Power BI training courses, G Com Solutions also provide training on Microsoft Excel BI. Our Excel Power User courses show delegates how to leverage Power Query and Power Pivot to streamline their Excel data analysis projects. We also provide training on Excel VBA programming. And naturally we also provide training on the full range of Microsoft Office programs: PowerPoint, Word, Access, Project, Visio and Outlook. And we also offer courses on Office 365 and SharePoint. As well as our Microsoft training courses, we provide training on the Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Premiere. And we also provide training on web development; covering such topics as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WordPress and PHP.
Can the training be done online or are in person classes more effective?
As well as our tutor-led Power BI Power BI classes, G Com Solutions provide on-demand, Power BI online training courses. I think when you’re learning a program, the more channels you consume the better. Online learning, books, blog posts and YouTube videos are all useful in getting to grips with new software. However, live, classroom training is still probably the best method of learning, especially if it’s customized to suit your requirements. This is what we try to do for our clients at G Com Solutions. We discuss our client’s requirements and then tailor the classroom training to match their needs; especially if their people have existing skills in Power BI.
Thank you Grant for sharing your thoughts with us!
You can follow up with Grant Gamble at https://gcomsolutions.co.uk