Businesses are moving at neck-breaking speeds. The trouble is, so is their competition. To gain a competitive advantage, every business decision must be informed and accurate. Irrespective of the industry, every business has access to a lot of data that they can leverage to their advantage. But unfortunately, very few do.
Currently, many companies, corporations and businesses are investing heavily in business intelligence to help them in ascertaining market trends and how to improve on their services. They also use it to know what customers require and ways of serving them effectively.
But what exactly is it?
DEFINING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Business intelligence (BI) refers to the processes, technologies, and tools used by businesses to analyse and transform data into actionable insights. BI can help businesses identify, develop, and implement new opportunities, strategies, and decisions based on insights from data.
The goal of BI is to provide decision-makers with the information they need to make more informed business decisions. BI includes a range of activities, such as data mining, data analysis, querying and reporting, and data visualisation.
BI tools and techniques can be used to identify trends, patterns, and correlations in data, which can be used to inform strategic business decisions. BI is used in a variety of industries and applications, such as sales forecasting, financial analysis, marketing analysis, and supply chain management. BI is often used in conjunction with big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to uncover insights from large and complex data sets.
HOW CAN BI MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
BI is important for businesses for several reasons:
- Better data accuracy
BI can help businesses improve data accuracy, make better decisions more quickly, improve mission-critical outcomes, share data across business functional areas, gain better visibility into financial and operational information, and identify and reduce inefficiencies. - Better decision-making
BI provides decision-makers with the data they need to make informed decisions. By analysing data from various sources, BI can help businesses identify patterns and trends, gain insights into customer behaviour, and track key performance indicators. This allows businesses to make better decisions and take actions that are more likely to lead to success. - Increased efficiency
BI can automate many of the processes involved in data analysis, allowing businesses to operate more efficiently. BI tools can quickly gather and analyse large amounts of data, freeing up time and resources that can be devoted to other business activities. - Better risk management
BI can help businesses identify and manage risks more effectively. By analysing data related to risk factors, such as market trends, customer behaviour, and operational performance, businesses can take steps to mitigate risks and avoid potential problems.
UTILISING BI EFFECTIVELY AND SUSTAINABLY
BI matters. It can empower businesses to make better decisions, operate more efficiently, and gain a competitive advantage.
Using in-house tools can provide incredible insight into areas that need focus. Business data will be centralised from disparate sources into a single digital platform, whereas previously sourcing all that data could be very time consuming, especially if it resided in departmental silos.
Companies who leverage their data assets properly are primed to become market leaders. They continuously gain deep insights, uncover new opportunities, get to market faster and quickly increase their competitiveness. Their dynamic, transparent and agile cultures support an habitual exploration of opportunities at all levels of the organisation.
The increasing speed of market developments, evolving customer preferences, and increased competition require companies to constantly adapt to be successful. Never has there been this much disruption this quickly, enabled by technology’s ability to scale quicky.
Large corporations need to meet the market and match much smaller, agile competitors regarding speed to market, cost, creativity and culture. Data and analytics provide a pathway to deliver this and offer many opportunities to build value that all too often remain hidden.
Harness the power of data. Unlock the full potential of your data and drive better decisions. If you would like to learn more about how we’ve helped make this a reality for businesses around the world, please feel free to get in touch with us.
