Business intelligence can, and should, be the foundation from which you make all of your decisions.
Which product lines to invest in. Which staff and stores to develop. How to maximise positive outcomes.
Yet in many cases, a lack of technological evolution has rendered the required insights inaccessible.
Over time, system tweaks have been made leaving intelligence out of reach, and process disconnected from your wider business goals.
This creates problems as data becomes, at best, siloed or, at worst, unactionable.
This leaves you to make critical decisions off outdated, or inaccurate, information.
“Only 34% of decision-makers report that they feel confident in the reliability of the information they use.”
KPMG & Forrester
The Business Intelligence Solution
Currently, for many aspirational organisations, the necessary business intelligence may well be present, but nothing useful can be done with it.
Embracing technology alleviates this roadblock. It allows you to evaluate where you are now versus where you want to be.
“In 2019, 64% of users reported that business intelligence helped improve their efficiency and productivity.
Meanwhile, 56% believe it has allowed them to make more effective decisions faster and 51% think it has led to better financial performance.”
Microstrategy
Monitoring business performance on such a basis, with timely and accurate information, is a key priority for decision makers and individual contributors alike.
Why? Because business intelligence facilitates optimised process and maximised results.
With such invaluable insights in your arsenal, you can move quickly to seize opportunities and nip emerging issues in the bud.
Fast & Accurate Reporting
Intelligence is most valuable when it is immediate. There’s no use receiving a report 5 days after the data has been pulled; it’s no longer reliable.
Across the organisation, employees can use customised reports to monitor key KPIs using a variety of data sources, including financial, operations, and sales data.
When these reports are generated in real time and use the most relevant data, businesses can act quickly.
This means outstanding enquiries can be reached faster resulting in higher conversion rates. And underperforming products and stores can be helped before it’s too late.
Business Intelligence By Role & Responsibility
As valuable as immediate business intelligence is, it’s all too easy to drown in the data.
The real gains are to be made by delivering different levels of information to your people, on the basis of what they need to know to make decisions.
“The average worker spends nearly 20% of their time looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help with specific tasks”.
Mckinsey
So, whether it’s a high level review of organisational operations or a manager’s update on sales and project progress, the picture is clear.
There’s no better way to make sure you have the accurate, up to the minute data to allow you to evaluate the situation, consider the options and act accordingly.
This way, across the organisational spectrum, you know you are making informed decisions, based on sound business intelligence.
More Opportunities, Fewer Mistakes
A natural result of this greater insight and better decision making is more opportunities are taken, and fewer mistakes are made.
Increasing revenue is an important goal for any business. But equally important is guaranteeing customer satisfaction through outstanding experience.
Data drawn from business intelligence technologies can help you ask better questions about why things happened. It provides an opportunity to make comparisons across dimensions and identify weaknesses.
When organisations are listening to their customers, watching their competitors, and improving their operations, revenue is more likely to increase.
Improved Customer Experience
Business intelligence can directly impact customer satisfaction.
Their experience should be at the centre of your actions. So when your operational processes are at their peak, the inevitable result is greater enjoyment of your interactions.
“People want to buy from companies that make it easy to get help when they need it, that go above and beyond for them, and that make them proud to support their culture and philosophy.”
4 Ways To Make Customers Love Your Business
Similarly business intelligence can help you to embed behaviours among your team.
So not only are you reinforcing process, you are improving how that process is delivered. Always with the customer front of mind.
Doing so evolves your customer relationships toward collaboration and awy from a buyer/seller dynamic.
By achieving this, the experience of buying from you never feels like being sold to. The inevitable consequence being close rates for new projects start to increase.
Enhanced Efficiency
Ultimately, business intelligence generates opportunities to enhance efficiency.
Across the organisation, individuals have the ability to access data and gain a holistic view of their operations alongside the ability to benchmark results.
With this increased visibility, leaders can identify areas of opportunity.
When organisations spend fewer hours on data analysis and compiling reports, they have more time to innovate on new projects and products for their business.
So not only does business intelligence allow you to evaluate where you are now, it enables you to project your future aims to ensure those targets are met.
Ready to explore how Anthill can enable you to tap into the business intelligence you need? Schedule a demo today.
Intrigued to learn more? Check out our Insights Hub to keep your business at the cutting edge.
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- October 28th, 2021