By TSG
09/11/2020
When we think of ‘intelligence’ the first thing that comes to mind is government intelligence, with MI6 or perhaps the CIA as our first thoughts, and whilst governments have been making use of mass intelligence gathering for decades, businesses also have a need for intelligence, for sure it doesn’t have the same dramatic effect as a James Bond film, but it can still be fascinating and an important asset for all businesses.
BI comes in two different forms, the first is classic BI, an IT-led function that uses internal company data to generate reports, the second is modern BI, where businesses and not necessarily IT staff, interact with agile systems in a user-friendly way to analyse data quickly and efficiently. Classic BI is used when accuracy is more important than speed, and modern BI is used when insight is needed quickly and the data is rapidly changing, this is valued more than the data being 100 percent accurate.
There is also self-service business intelligence, which provides the ability to almost anyone to gain access to valuable insights from business intelligence tools, this removes the need for getting IT involved to generate a report, this makes company data reports available to non-technical staff and managers.
What is business intelligence (BI)?
A technology-driven process that combines business analytics, data visualisation, data tools, data mining, and infrastructure for transforming data into actionable insights, which help executives and managers make informed business decisions. This group of tools access and analyse all types of datasets, whether they be small or big, they then present the findings back in reports, dashboards, charts, graphs, and maps, which gives granular intelligence about the current state of the business.
Here are the most important features of BI:
* Dashboards
* Reporting
* Visualisations
* Data Mining
* Online Analytical Processing
5 Reasons why you should invest in Business Intelligence
The uses of BI extends far beyond performance metrics and spreadsheet programs, and available to small and medium-sized businesses not just the large enterprises of the past as well as being more affordable than ever, lets take a look at some of the benefits:
1. Turn data into usable information for comprehensive analysis, identifying trends and interconnections between multiple business functions
2. Improve visibility of business components, allowing you to make changes and improvements
3. Understand consumer behaviour by tracking global and local consumption patterns, helping the business to understand current trends and make better business decisions.
4. Improve sales and marketing intelligence by tracking how your clients interact with your business at a deeper level, allowing you to target and serve them better.
5. Increase productivity by quickly and efficiently understanding business data, and output reports by just pushing a button or clicking a mouse.
Business intelligence is a key component for businesses that removes a lot of the guesswork and time needed to gain valuable insights, The future of BI will be smart, a type of Augmented analytics where machine learning is directly embedded into the BI software, guiding users before performing actions, providing a powerful and, an all-encompassing data experience.
The #TimeSavingGurus are data specialists and can help your business benefit from the wonders of BI, get in touch with me at [email protected] to hear how we can help.
