BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE – A MODERN-DAY VALUE PROPOSITION FOR COMPANIES OF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES
Business intelligence (BI) describes computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data. BI technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of economic operations using the aim of supporting better decision making. (Definition paraphrased from Wikipedia).
If you are working in the Banking, Telecommunications or Retail sector, you surely know of the importance of Business Intelligence. Your company has a large volume of business transactions and for that reason succeeding running a business becomes a numbers game. Probably your company has implemented a data warehouse to capture data about relevant business metrics there are a broad range of processes and tools in position to make use of the captured information to facilitate making decisions, pricing policies, business governance, etc. Your organization knows that a definite knowledge of underlying business figures will allow you to extract valuable insight to comprehend where you are leaving money on the table and just how you are able to improve your revenues further. And, indeed, most people that we work with, who’ve a background in the above mentioned industries, comprehend the worth of data analysis and also the requisite tools (Business Intelligence systems) very well.
However, over the last couple of years, we view significant improvements in BI software performance, such as the accessibility to previously high-end analytics at entry-level pricing points. Today, a business can implement Business Intelligence systems from leading brands for under 150,000 Euro and, with respect to the specific requirements, perhaps for a smaller amount. Therefore, I believe the BI market has come old to some extent where even medium-sized companies across more or less any industry segment can contemplate such solutions. I believe that in many cases there’s a strong business case to implement a central Business Intelligence solution. There are lots of aspects of business that, if monitored closely, can be improved significantly with time.
Here are some examples how modern, progressive companies might be able to realize substantial business value from Business Intelligence systems:
Example 1: Your organization has numerous sales branches across the nation. Business Intelligence systems can help to capture key performance data all branches for example sales, costs, performance ratios and display the information centrally for further analysis. You will not only have the ability to see how each branch, or perhaps a number of branches, is progressing, you may also compare peer branches to determine what branch is falling behind by which business aspect. This makes your business improvement efforts very focused and effective.
Example 2: Your company is strongly determined by your brand positioning on the market. To ensure a powerful brand position, you run many branding campaigns and, meant for this, must ensure all customer touch points – i.e., wherever a person comes in contact with the business – are behaving in a professional manner that consistently re-enforces the brand image. Thus, you define a suitable score-card of measurement criteria for each type of touch point that can be collected, stored, collated and analyzed in near real-time using BI tools, thereby allowing easy identification of where customers have problems getting together with your brand. Like this, you receive valuable information about how to increase the return on your advertising budget.
Example 3: Your company services customers at many sites throughout the country. You have a Quality Assurance team to monitor delivery quality. Business Intelligence systems might help consolidate customer comments information for all customers whilst simultaneously cross-indexing the relative need for each customer to your business. This information will help your Quality Assurance team to focus their time at customers where it really matters, i.e. customers which are very important to your business but also have a need to improve service quality.
They are only three examples how Business Intelligence systems can help modern, progressive companies on the cross-industry basis. From our experience, you will find wide ranging opportunities for companies to leverage the way they handle information. Applying the principle “what you measure you are able to manage” scalping strategies will help you focus your resources on where it really matters and ensure you don’t miss opportunities to enhance your main point here. Since the investment for such systems has fallen continuously over recent times, a lot more companies should now consider embracing the benefits that the technology in this area has to offer.