Business Intelligence is the use of data analysis to improve decision-making. This could be anything from knowing where your company’s strengths are to mapping out the competition. For any company, BI can help provide a competitive edge.
The benefits of business intelligence include:
- Lower costs and higher revenues
- Improved quality and service levels
- Increased efficiency and profitability
- Reduced risk and vulnerability to fraud or theft
- Improved management performance
- Employee satisfaction
The goal of business intelligence is to allow organizations intuitive access to enormous amounts of information and facilitate data analysis. The best way for an organization to achieve this goal is by hiring professionals who will ensure that it has the correct type of software in place and people with strong analytical skills who know how to work with such tools effectively.
What is Business Intelligence used for?
Business intelligence can be used to take past data to predict future trends for businesses. There are many applications from marketing, finance, human resources to retail, inventory management, and the list goes on. Companies with good business intelligence are better equipped to respond quickly to changing conditions, increasing profits or decreasing costs. This provides a massive advantage over their competitors.
Business intelligence typically consists of a combination of processes, tools, and applications for transforming raw data into meaningful and valuable information that can be used to facilitate better business decisions.
Business Intelligence Help Companies Make Better Decisions
Business intelligence can help companies make better decisions by providing them with the information to reduce risks and increase profits. Business intelligence also helps leaders assess their organizational performance and compare it to best practices or competitors. It provides insight into how an organization is performing so that steps can be taken to improve.
For example, business intelligence can help a company’s leaders determine whether their pricing is too high or too low and by how much. Armed with this information, they can set new prices that will increase profits. Another example is product mix optimization which allows companies to maximize their profitability by selling the right products at the right time to the right segments of buyers.
The Benefits of Business Intelligence
Business intelligence can help companies turn data into information and insight that can be used to facilitate better business decisions. Here are just a few of the ways business intelligence helps organizations:
Increase Revenue While Lowering Costs
Business intelligence can help organizations make better decisions that increase revenue while lowering costs. This is achieved through improved inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM), and price optimization.
Improve Product Development
Business intelligence can help organizations improve their product development process. This is done by using data from sales channels to understand customers’ buying patterns and preferences. The information can also shorten the time-to-market by informing engineering which features should be developed or improved before a product launch.
Increase Sales Efficiency
Inventory management, CRM, price optimization – these are just a few processes that business intelligence systems can help improve and increase sales efficiency for an organization. In addition, business intelligence software can provide real-time access to current and historical data, leading to insights within a company’s sales cycle.
Improve Decision Making Across the Organization
Business Intelligence empowers employees across organizations with up-to-date information so they can make better decisions. With access to this information, managers can provide direction without micromanaging employees.
Business Intelligence Helps Analyze Your Customer’s Behavior
Business intelligence allows organizations to analyze the behavior of their customers. This can improve customer service, increase sales, or help bring in new kinds of revenue. For example, business intelligence lets retailers build profiles of their customers based on items purchased and combine that with demographic information, which provides insights into who their buyers are and what they want.
Improves Management and Employee Satisfaction
Business Intelligence technology can share information across an organization, so everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals. It also provides a more effective way for managers to track their teams’ progress and provide feedback. In turn, employees feel better supported and more satisfied with their jobs.
Use Business Intelligence to Create Actionable Intelligence
Given the benefits outlined above, it’s hard not to justify an investment into Business Intelligence technology. Adopting BI will give you improved visibility, help you grow your business with actionable insights, and even help you outpace your competition by giving you an understanding of areas of improvement.