Your business is a data-producing factory. From customer details to product information, sales figures, purchasing numbers and various expenditures, you’re generating data on daily basis at a rate of knots. The question is, can you easily access and interpret this information?
As you grow the need for visibility across the business increases. Gaining quick insights into how your business is performing will instantly give you the ability to identify issues, trends and opportunities to make faster decisions to benefit your bottom line.
That’s where business intelligence tools come in. They can analyse the data inside your business and presenting it in a digestible format so you can make more informed decisions. Essentially they can data from multiple sources like warehousing, human resources, CRM and financial system.
Increase productivity
One of the best things about business intelligence is that it dramatically increases your productivity – you no longer need to compile or analyse data manually, which is the bane of any small business. Business intelligence tools do it all for you automatically, providing visibility and updating information as transactions occur in your business in real-time. It will free you up to be productive on value-added tasks. What’s more, you’ll have total confidence in the numbers presented because they come from a single source.
Close the gap between goals and results
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are important indicators of the health of your business. Business intelligence allows you to define the right KPIs to help you achieve what you’re aiming for. You can set realistic KPIs to keep track of areas that matter most, such as stock turnover, operating margins, days outstanding on debtor payments and more.
Improve visibility
Having complete visibility of your sales, productivity and profitability will allow you to evaluate what’s driving your business to success and identify any roadblocks. Business intelligence simplifies complex data into a user-friendly dashboard so you can see what’s working and what needs improvement.
Be one step ahead
While business intelligence is not a crystal ball, it can help you spot important trends and proactively solve potential problems before they happen.
For instance, by understanding what your customers are buying, you can use this information to have the right stock on hand to ensure timely delivery or extend product ranges based on preferences. Knowing what stock is going to be in demand at which times can dramatically improve your purchasing and ensure you have the right amount of stock to cater to demand.
Strengthen customer relationships
Delivering great customer service can sometimes be challenging, no matter what business you’re in. By leveraging business intelligence, you can guide decisions and choices to benefit the customer experience. For example, you can track customer support cases into your dashboard to evaluate customer satisfaction and drill down into fulfilment rates and delivery times to zero in on the areas in your business that require attention.
Put simply, business intelligence enables you to dig deeper into the numbers that affect customer service. Knowing the issues, understanding the opportunities and implementing strategies to boost customer satisfaction will strengthen your relationships, increase loyalty and ultimately increase revenue.
These are just five of the benefits you can realise by using business intelligence tools. By accessing the valuable information that’s available in your data, you can take the next step in your journey towards continued business growth.
Stephen Canning, CEO, JCurve Solutions
