Data by itself has little value to organizations. You need to know how to turn this data into actionable information that helps you make the best decisions. With a sound Business Intelligence approach, any organization can ensure it is taking actions based on complete and accurate information.
The usefulness of BI
In a nutshell, Business Intelligence means having insight into the organization's performance. Due to automation and digitalization, many companies have an enormous amount of data. Financial data, sales figures, customer data, etc. All this data forms an enormous source of information, which tells a lot about the performance of the organization. With the right BI approach, you turn this information into concrete actions to make the organization more successful. If you don't do this, you will be behind the times and miss opportunities. Business Intelligence helps you to understand what is happening in your organization and above all what you need to do to be more successful.
Making better decisions thanks to BI
A good BI approach allows you to make the right decisions. To illustrate, an example of analyzing sales figures without versus with a BI tool:
WITHOUT BI:
The administrative department collects the sales figures at the end of May and runs a report showing the figures by branch, by product group and by account manager. Management looks at the figures and sees that they are better than in April and they are satisfied.
WITH BI:
Management is looking at a one-time, real-time dashboard of sales figures. May seems to have been a good month. The numbers are compared to previous years and then it appears that sales always peak in May and are actually disappointing this year. It is also notable that one big sales deal represents over 20% of sales. Zooming in on the results per account manager over the past 12 months, it is noticeable that one of the junior salespeople is developing very strongly.
Just one example of how a powerful BI tool gives much more insight into the performance of the organization, allowing you to take the right actions. For example, investigate why sales often peak in May, how to become less dependent on one or a few sales deals and give promotion to the junior account manager.
What is a good BI approach?
But what then is a good BI approach? The most important thing is knowing what data is relevant to manage your business. What KPIs are you steering the processes and departments on? Once you can clearly define that, it's about finding a user-friendly and powerful BI tool and an experienced, specialized party to deliver, set up and maintain your organization's BI strategy. Choose a party that knows your industry and understands the challenges and issues you face. BI is not about software or technology, but about business.
Bjorn Schouten is a Business Intelligence Consultant at Dysel and helps clients turn data into valuable management information.
