Everyone has heard of Business Intelligence, but the term more than likely conjures various definitions or interpretations depending on who is asked. And while the definition can sway highly-technical, business intelligence (BI) essentially refers to gathering, analyzing, accessing, and transforming data into actionable insight. From this insight comes the ability to provide better decision-making.
The real power of BI and its supporting tools lies not within singular, isolated databases but rather the ability to cross-reference and interpret the data from multiple simultaneous sources. What does this mean for businesses? Simple.
Visibility.
By leveraging significant amounts of data across various functional areas, organizations can develop holistic views into any number of business-critical areas, such as:
Sales Intelligence
Data Visualization
Reporting & KPI
Operational Optimization
Customer Insight
Marketing Performance
Customer Journeys
Business Intelligence Models
Models play an important role in Business Intelligence for analyzing goals, trends, and outcomes. Depending on the unique perspectives on business processes, the analysis of target results, and the availability of data, intelligence models can significantly impact manageability.
Data models provide an in-depth view of how the business operates, presenting data in a manner that is intuitive and easily understood. Creating a good data model specifically for business analysis is vital because these goals tend to differ when compared to databases running a transactional application. For example, a simple and optimized method to collect data will likely suffice for organizations looking to record sales.
However, if a company wants to truly analyze sales, a data model optimized to query, aggregate, and report data in significant volume may be required.
In short, the success of a BI program can hinge on an organization’s ability to develop the most accurate model based on its unique needs and goals.
Advantages of Business Intelligence:
- A BI system can be a vital asset to a company’s sales and analysis teams because it provides access to granular reporting, illustrating sales trends, product feedback, customer behavioral patterns, and untapped markets.
- A BI system can pinpoint areas of profit or loss that may otherwise go unnoticed (mostly in large companies). Since a BI system works best when deployed as a unified entity, it analyzes transactions between subsidiaries and departments to identify areas of inefficiency.
- Business intelligence can help a company objectively assess its capabilities; compare relative strengths and weaknesses against competitors; identify trends and market conditions, and respond quickly to change.
- Business intelligence may also help a company identify its most profitable customers, trouble spots within operations, or its return on investment for capital expenses.
As with all technology options, solutions exist across a range of business sizes and technological maturity. Specific solutions aside, many leading platforms exist for all companies to take advantage of business intelligence:
- Fast and accurate reporting
- Valuable business insights
- Competitive analysis
- Better data quality
- Increased customer satisfaction
- Identifying market trends
- Increased revenue
- Lower margins
- Increased operational efficiency
- Improved, accurate decisions
