BI- What and Why

What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence is the strategy and technology used by companies to analyze data and business information. In simple terms, it allows businesses to learn about any process or trend affecting performance, and to find out why such things are happening and what is likely to occur in the future. We can break them down in three categories:

•       Data Collection
•       Data processing
• ​​​​​​​      Querying and reporting

What is the purpose of Business Intelligence?

The major purpose that Business Intelligence serves for a business is helping the corporate executives, business managers, and other operational heads to make better data-driven business decisions. Many companies are using BI for cost-cutting, identifying better business opportunities, and spotting inefficient business processes.

What are the benefits of using Business Intelligence?

The major benefits that Business Intelligence provides are directly derived from the purpose it serves in the modern business scenario. Business intelligence helps in:

•       Gaining competitive advantages
•       Identifying the market trends
•       Spotting addressable business problems
•       Accelerating decision-making process
•       Optimizing internal business processes
•       Increasing the operational efficiency
•       Driving revenues

Who uses Business Intelligence?

Senior Leadership  

Give leadership the quick overview they need without getting their hands dirty into details. Clearly visualize cash burn, pipeline, revenue, employee engagement, and more. 

Operations 

BI tools can help not only in tracking budgets, but can give visual insights into financial data, potential problem areas, and overall business health. 

Sales 

BI can help improve sales KPIs drastically through visualizing the sales cycle, displaying conversion and churn rates, tracking the pipeline, total revenue, and more. 

Marketing 

View all marketing KPIs in one place so you can track engagement and performance, as well as the conversions, cost per lead, website traffic, and analytics.

The major issue in the modern business scenario is that business owners often mix business analytics with Business Intelligence. A business owner must understand that the core of BI is reporting and not process management. Business Intelligence has the power of transforming organizations; however, this is not implemented because business owners lack the knowledge of Business Intelligence. Let’s explore what Business Intelligence is NOT. 

• Business Intelligence is NOT a product, but it is a formulation of information in which various software help interpret to answer not only present but future questions (hence, predictive analysis).
• Business Intelligence does NOT solve a problem to create an opportunity. It simply allows the end-users to ask a question to understand the answer. It cannot implement or execute a plan or decide what needs to change for improvement. In order for BI to be of any value for an organization, there needs to be somebody on the other side of the computer screen or device to execute the plan.
• Business Intelligence is NOT just a report or a reporting tool, but it is a crucial decision-making tool in today’s modern business world. It helps organizations track project executions with accuracy, reduced costs through controlled productivity and inventory management. Moreover, BI increases productivity and helps in finding new markets that organizations may not even realize they are serving.
• Business Intelligence is NOT just a one-time implementation. Businesses are always evolving and competition is always changing. Therefore, BI is not a static instance, but a dynamic occurrence to ensure that the organization is ahead of the competition. Business Intelligence is a continuous process driven by improvements throughout the business cycle.
• Business Intelligence is NOT only meant for big organizations or organizations with large budgets. Business Intelligence can assist organizations from any level to understand present data and future trends.

Business Intelligence is not a fancy expenditure for your organization, it’s an investment that can help you to cut the unnecessary cost, increase the productive time, and can give you the insight to be future-ready and shape your business accordingly.