Business Intelligence: Luxury or Necessity?
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Rita Mae Brown originally wrote these words in her novel, “Sudden Death” in the year 1983 and yes, this quote has been misattributed to Albert Einstein for years now but that’s not my point.
Businesses today have been proving the definition of insanity in the same way over and over again by allowing their business to stagnate and fall into an endless loop of conservative processes and never trying something new. You want your business to evolve into the potential you envisioned it to be, but growth is virtually non-existent when a company never looks to optimize the way they serve their clients or customers.
To know is to measure and to measure is to know. Do you have a lot of data accumulating regularly, stored away on the cloud for one day your dreaded audit is due? This (BIG) data doesn’t have to drift in a stagnant pool. It’s a valuable asset to your company and the key to unlocking exponential growth for the future of your company. Many successful leaders today have one thing in common. They journal daily and reflect on what they can do better tomorrow. Companies “journal” each day, accumulating data from every aspect and yet they fail to read and dissect that “journal” of data to ensure yesterday’s mistakes and inefficiencies would become tomorrow’s victories and proficiencies.
First of all, what is “Business Intelligence” as they call it today? Business intelligence leads to better business decisions by accessing a large volume of data or “BIG” data. Even if your company doesn’t accumulate a large amount of data, one can still produce considerable benefits from deriving insights from your stockpile of data. Business Intelligence or “BI” for short, is not a single piece of software to analyze big data. It is an umbrella term that includes best business practices, software, infrastructure, and any other tools to optimize decision making and enhance performance.
So what am I trying to tell you? BI is about information analysis, pulling together information from the different facets of your business and converting that raw data into valuable reports, charts, and other analytical tools such as scenario analysis and forecasting to provide insight into the questions of What If. Most businesses never get to the part of asking the question of What If, because they are stuck asking the question of What “now”?
Your company needs to convert raw data into information to carve out the winning strategies for the future of your business. Is all your data stored in massive spreadsheets or servers? All that data should provide your company with information on sales trends, consumer behaviour and resources allocation. The converted data can show you and your business partners the validity of each of your products and help in maximizing revenues and reduce costs.
You can eliminate the tedious task of consolidating data manually, allowing managers to monitor businesses in every step of the way and reducing the scope of error by providing accurate information to make better decisions on what is happening now and to forecast for the future.
If the above hasn’t convinced you already that your business needs BI, here are some key reasons why BI can mean the success of your business:
· Easier decision making.
· It provides a structured way for growing your revenue.
· Increase the competitive advantage over other players in the industry.
· Improve the efficiency of your business operations.
· Enhance the quality of your customer service.
The reasons above should not be a luxury. It should be a necessity to have these key factors present to pave the way to the success and prosperity of your business. Don’t find yourself stuck trying to make sense of your business on spreadsheets and taking on the tedious task of putting it together in a way that’s easy to understand for the rest of your colleagues.
Going only the spreadsheet route produces results that are not always accurate or insightful. While Excel has many excellent features, it’s like driving the 20 km/h with a Lamborghini Aventador, only to see your competitor drive by in the fast lane with their Bugatti Veyron. For a bigger future, like taking a company to the next level, you need bigger, better, faster, and more efficient tools.
Why DRIVATIC?
So that’s the what and the why to Business Intelligence, but why partner with a company such as DRIVATIC? We know your data analysis and insights are a great asset to your company, but it can also be a great asset to your competitor. So, having your information falling into the wrong hands is the last thing we’d like to see happen to any of our clients.
That’s why we developed a platform to give secure accesses of specific reports to individual employees within your company. Easily request new login access to our development team without any extra cost to new users added. We have dedicated support to offer at your, and we are here to provide you with an everchanging and evolving BI tool that will change as your business does to fit you with the perfect tailor-made solution that delivers the best results and to level up your business.
Knowing the Answers to the What Ifs of your Business – Advanced Scenario Analysis and Forecasting
All right, so now you’ve looked at your business retrospectively. With the help of your fully customized and tailor-made dashboard from DRIVATIC, you could gain a great perspective of the history of your business and what the current status of every nook and cranny is when it comes to your current affairs, but what about the future of your business.
You’ve played around with the filters and slicers, seeing your data change before your eyes, but that’s still producing calculations on KPIs according to historical data.
As a successful business owner, you can’t afford a real-life trial and error process in your business. Not only will it cost you money, but the precious time you could’ve utilized better to produce real growth in your industry.
So why not do this on a DRIVATIC dashboard report?
Ask yourself, how would your important data change should your favourite set of KPIs increase or decrease with a percentage or two or what would my bottom-line look like should I have increased the amount of produce on a particular offering. This helps a business owner learn from his company’s past to create a clear view of all the wrong decisions the company made and to improve on them in the future.
People often say: “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” but no, scenario analysis is not some form of wishful thinking. It’s creating a set of possible outcomes to future events based on historical data and being prepared to face all the challenges your business can face will set you in a good position. It will help you create the most effective contingency plans for various of your projects should any worst case scenario arise because let’s face it – a business faces a lot of uncontrollable and you have to plan your way through every permutation and combination of these factors when they fall to the dark side of things.
However, what about the future?
With DRIVATIC’s BI solution, you’ve managed to see your company’s historical data in a fantastic way (Dynamic Reporting) and where improvements you should make.
How do you paint a picture of the future with the newly suggest KPIs you’ve viewed will improve your business?
The answer:
Forecasting. With our highly skilled team of developers, we can create statistical models such as multivariate regression models to paint a picture and find the exact KPIs needed to optimize your strategy and increase the revenue of your business with no time to spare.
Scenario Analysis and Forecasting for your business is a necessity. There’s no use in journaling your thoughts and experiences if you don’t reflect on the past and consider where to improve. The data your business accumulates is a valuable asset that can unlock the secrets to gaining an advantage over your competitors and improve solely on your terms.
Ask one of our sales consultants for more information on how you can have your ultimate BI solution designed to fit the needs unique to your industry and business.
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