Business intelligence, commonly referred to as BI, was once a domain that only large corporations spoke of. That has changed; businesses of all sizes, from nearly every industry imaginable, are coming to a similar conclusion: It is vital to their very survival to make decisions that are informed by the data they collect, and the intelligence they can derive from that data.
BI helps a company truly understand what is going on in its business at any given moment. It helps a company understand recent events, and it also helps a company understand what has been happening over time.
What Is BI?
Business Intelligence is not limited to offering dashboards and charts, as it encompasses the entire process of compiling, analyzing, and using data from different aspects of the business to make intelligent choices.
The data from any number of systems, like a sales system, customer service software, or an inventory tracking system, can be drawn on to compile the business picture. When the disparate parts are pulled together into a coherent whole, the business has a chance to see itself and act intelligently.
Real Example: Inventory Management
A retail outlet observed that it frequently ran low on best-selling products but had an overabundance of slow-moving merchandise. Rather than rely on instinct or intuition to make replenishment decisions, the store's management used business intelligence (BI) to evaluate not just past sales but also seasonal patterns and local events that might drive certain items off the shelves. Now, when an item sells out, the store knows just what's needed to keep everything in balance.
Why It Matters More Than Ever
Today’s fast-paced business world makes it futile to rely on outdated management practices. Monthly reports and head-counting time & motion studies no longer serve investigative purposes. Neither do they supply just-in-time decision support.
In a volatile market, when rumors and facts collide, a command and control management structure demands too much time just to stay in touch with the necessary reality. You need answers, BI delivers them.
BI Helps You Ask Better Questions
Numerous individuals consider BI as merely a means for obtaining responses. However, one of its greatest strengths lies in its ability to assist users in formulating more intelligent inquiries. Rather than state, "Why are sales down?" one might ask, "Which region witnessed the decline, and when did it commence?" These kinds of questions prompt the formulation of even better solutions.
Everyone Benefits, Not Just Analysts
Business intelligence isn’t just for the data teams or the teams that have historically worked with data, like IT. Teams all over organizations are using BI now because anyone can use it to gain a deeper understanding of their data. Marketing can use it for measuring the success of their campaigns; Sales can use it for tracking their leads and close rates; HR can use it for looking at employee retention metrics; Operations can use it for overseeing performance across their various sites.
The best BI tools today are made for these teams, and they’re much easier to use than you might think. With user-friendly dashboards and visuals, even a marketing intern can access and explore the data without needing to code or be a tech expert.
Real Example: Customer Experience
A tiny web shop began to keep an eye on its customers to see where they were dropping out during checkout. With the help of some BI tools, they figured out that users of mobile devices were having a much tougher time completing the checkout process.
They made a couple of tweaks to the design and saw a noticeable bump in conversion rate within a week. Without BI, that insight might have taken months to figure out, or even worse, gone unnoticed.
BI Builds a Culture of Clarity
Making decisions based on data takes the guesswork and argumentation based on opinions out of the process. People trust it, teams align around it, and discussions become focused on what the numbers say, which is a way of saying that they become focused on the collective understanding of what the situation is.
BI Saves Time and Money
Rather than having to gather reports each week manually or rely on the various departments to send their updates on time, BI takes over these tasks and does them automatically. You can schedule reports to run at regular intervals. Dashboards refresh themselves with new data as it becomes available, and if a significant change occurs in your data, an alert will notify you.
The Tools Are Easier Than Ever
A large tech team is not a requirement for starting; solutions such as Power BI, Looker, and Tableau are platform-ready. Connecting them to your business is typically straightforward, and many of the tools you already use, like Excel, Google Analytics, or Shopify, can be hooked up seamlessly.
From there, it's all about exploration. This is where the drag and drop feature comes in handy, as it allows non-technical users to play with the data in a way that feels intuitively exploratory.
BI Drives Growth
Identifying patterns and predicting what comes next are the kinds of things that data help you do. A business amid growth might use BI for forecasting demand, using these numbers for future planning. If it's a service company, BI might be used to track customer service complaints.
The idea behind this use is to fix what's broken and step up your game before negative service reviews happen. Decisions made based on actual occurrences improve results. You do a better job of responding to actual customer needs and planning for the next stage of growth.
Real Example: Restaurant Chain
A restaurant chain with multiple outposts used business intelligence to score sales on an item-by-item basis and by the time of day. They found that one dish performed better in the evening but not at lunch. They recalibrated the menu for better lunch options, promoted the evening dish more heavily, and, with those two decisions, pushed sales up in both time slots.
BI and Your Team
BI also connects teams to results. When employees see the direct line from their actions to the performance of the business, in this case, how the recent marketing campaign might have affected web traffic, they feel a sense of ownership. Their visibility into the workings of the business on a day-to-day basis is as much a motivator as the business's performance targets.
Starting Is Easier Than You Think
If your business has yet to adopt BI, the ideal starting point is to begin with a modest implementation. Identify a solitary area of frustration, sluggish reporting, insufficient insight, or an inordinate amount of time spent gathering data. Then select a BI tool that can perform that task satisfactorily and, ideally, at a much quicker pace than you are currently achieving.
As you see positive results from this small endeavor, consider expansion and incorporate data from additional sources. Include more employees in your BI efforts; your business has the potential to go not just from reactive to responsive but to leading with data.
Conclusion
Business intelligence is not only for technological firms or gigantic corporations. It can serve any company that wishes to comprehend its internal workings, gain insight, and grow in a manner that seems sensible and responsible.
When we speak of the "fast decisions" our customers are making, we mean these are decisions that probably involve a vast number of people in some form or another (smaller person-to-person decisions are probably the fastest decisions customers make). Our decisions are what make a business tick. And with doing business comes the necessity of understanding the basic parts of your doing-business organism.
Therefore, pose this question to yourself: Are you exploiting BI to its maximum? If not, there is no better time than now to begin.