Business Intelligence helps teams make more data-driven decisions. Companies use BI platforms to import, analyze, and transform data into business insights.
Business Intelligence (BI) was once a fancy word that only a few organization members knew. Today BI is changing the way how organizations operate and achieve growth.
The research shows that 26% of companies use business intelligence in daily operations and strategic planning. Organizations use data to support their decisions, recommendations, and opinions. 74% of companies confirmed that they need data to back up their decision-making process.
94% of companies consider data and analytics essential to their business growth. Indeed, business intelligence can help those companies make decisions five times faster. It improves efficiency, productivity, and financial results. Let's take a closer look at how business intelligence benefits your business.
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence refers to the infrastructure, processes, and tools acting together to produce a valuable view of the relevant data. The goal of business intelligence is to help employees make more data-driven decisions. Companies use BI platforms to import, analyze, and transform data into business insights.
BI has some distinctive features. First, both technical and non-technical users can easily access BI system. Secondly, business intelligence provides visibility into data. Visibility means a clear and concise view of data, custom report formats, and visualization. And most importantly, BI assumes profound analysis, comparison, and forecasting already made for the decision-maker to draw a conclusion. In contrast to business analytics, BI uses a broader range of business data from different sources to predict trends and outcomes.
How Companies Use Business Intelligence?
Organizations use Business Intelligence in almost every aspect of the business. Here are some real-world applications of BI solutions:
- Automate reporting and reporting distribution
- Develop new products and services
- Attract and retain customers
- Analyze the results of marketing campaigns
- Analyze current products and services
- Analyze customer behavior
- Analyze and forecast sales
- Analyze inventory and forecast supply
- Manage risk
- Monitor and improve financial performance
- Track KPIs
- Monitor the market
- Benchmark results against competitors
- Analyze workplace and workforce productivity
- Drive process and cost efficiency
Collect all company data sources into a single view to make cross-department connections.
How Business Benefits From Business Intelligence?
- Business Insights. The business intelligence platform combines data from different systems and departments to produce a single report detailing the business process. By examining the entire process, you can find gaps, opportunities, and ideas for improvement. Discover new trends and patterns that might not have been possible to detect otherwise.
- Better Customer Experience. You can learn more about your customers' needs and experiences with your brand by analyzing customer behavior with BI. You may find new ways to enhance your offering and after-sale support.
- Understanding Company Performance. When you employ business intelligence tools, you may keep track of company performance indicators, develop projections, and explore the reasons behind the plan deviation. Furthermore, you can compare the company's performance against competitors and the market.
Predictive Capabilities. BI uses predictive analytics to generate forecasts, conduct stress tests, and assess the potential impact on the performance of the company. Some platforms offer real-time monitoring data alerts. A risk early-warning system informs the team of any deviations from the plan. Companies can adjust long-term plans and implement necessary corrections when they have the ability to simulate various scenarios and receive early-warning signs. - Managing Risks. BI enables you to manage your business risks more effectively. Identify potential issues before they grow into greater ones, support risk-based decisions with accurate BI data, and monitor exposure and credit portfolio in real-time.
Increased Efficiency. Companies that use BI gain a complete understanding of their business, enabling them to find new solutions to improve organizational efficiency and streamline processes. - Reduced Workload. BI tools let you eliminate manual tasks by automating reporting and giving access to a larger group of users. The IT department can focus on other requests rather than producing an excruciating number of one-time reports.
- Better Data Management. Users typically need to access several databases to create a single report because data from various departments is typically separated. You can create a single data warehouse by combining all internal databases and external data sources using the BI platform. Hence, all users have easy access to the same data and can quickly create individual reports.
- Data-Driven Decision-Making. By leveraging business intelligence tools, your company can take quality decisions vetted by data, supported by forecasts, and confirmed by market benchmarks. Better business decisions are made possible by precise data and swift reporting capabilities. All employees using this strategy will be able to decide more quickly and effectively, allowing the business to operate at its best and reach its full potential.
- Cost Reduction. Companies that utilize BI benefit from improved planning, more thorough analysis, faster reporting, and faster business adjustment. Costs are reduced as a result, and more income is gained from new opportunities.
Decisions happen every second across the organization. Equip your team with BI capabilities to grow your business faster.
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