Business Intelligence (BI) is the foundation for the short- and long-term strategy of every success-driven organisation. But how does business intelligence really work? How can you leverage BI to extract insights from raw data to aid in business decision-making?
BI software tools empower organisations to bring together data and information to make better business choices. It also helps organisations gain a distinctive advantage over their peers by developing new strategies, identifying and exploring new growth and expansion opportunities, and analysing market trends. Using BI tools, organisations can also better understand client and customer needs. They can also be explored to monitor employee productivity in real-time.
Let us now have a close look at some benefits of business intelligence software.
Identifying market trends
Lowering margins
Increasing revenue
Performing competitive analysis
Fast and accurate reporting
Accurate, improved, and proactive decisions
Increasing operational efficiency
Better data quality and security
Increased customer satisfaction
Invaluable business insights
BI tools can help in delivering fast, accurate, and relevant information to decision-makers through a range of data sources [supply chain data, customer relationship management software system (e.g. Dynamics 365), sales or marketing analytics, operations performance, and more. Generally, BI software can pool all of these data sources together to offer current, historical, and predictive views to assist with business planning.
Why Is Business Intelligence So Important?
In today's business landscape that is primarily driven by data, organisations are facing overwhelming challenges to collect, analyse, store, and interpret data. This is primarily because the era of Big Data is upon us and this is where the concept of business intelligence comes into the picture.
For instance, employees can leverage customised reports or templates to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) using different data sources. This helps decision-makers act quickly and make proactive, more informed, and smarter business decisions. Furthermore, it becomes easier for organisations to gauge revenue, employee productivity, and overall success along with department-specific performances. Business Intelligence software can also help organisations identify their strengths and weaknesses to understand what’s working and what isn’t.
The list of advantages associated with business intelligence software doesn't end here. It can also be used to efficiently manage a large amount of data which is a competitive advantage in itself. Organisations can also leverage BI tools to track the marketing and sales performance of their peers to know more about how to better perform product and/or service differentiation. Moreover, BI tools can also be utilised to better understand customer patterns and behaviors in real-time to proactively anticipate customer needs, beliefs, and expectations to deliver better products and services.
Factors to consider-business intelligence software shopping
Select proven performance instead of hype
Choose a BI platform that plays well with others
Understand the platform’s long-term costs
Lean on your business contacts when selecting a BI solution
Dive into third-party reports
Need more help with business intelligence software shopping? Call or email us at C.I.G Consultants now!