Business intelligence is the process of utilizing technology and strategies for analyzing data and deriving useful business information. Business intelligence is precisely described in this definition. But the real question is: why are companies investing money and efforts to collect and process data? The simple answer is that it helps businesses make informed decisions, get a competitive edge, and increase efficiency.
Before, business intelligence solutions were just a part of the business plans of large enterprises. However, with so many benefits, SMBs are also taking the help of apps, business intelligence platforms, or third-party services to collect and analyze data from multiple resources.
If you are not sure whether your business needs business intelligence or not, here are a few BI benefits that might help you:
1. Tracking Key Metrics and KPIs
Successful business decisions need deep insights and information. That’s where key metrics and key performance indicators help. For example, they tell how your campaign is performing? Does it meet the purpose? Do you need to change the campaign?
Business intelligence helps measure these KPIs, like conversion rate, customer satisfaction score, page visitors, etc., by collecting and analyzing the data using software and apps.
2. Finding Operational Lapses
A well-thought business intelligence strategy helps identify flawed processes and operational lapses that might be otherwise difficult to identify. For example, measuring the patterns of customer reviews can help find what customers are complaining about, which department is underperforming, and where things are going wrong.
Analyzing this data can become a catalyst to improve processes, train employees, find better solutions, and bring change to improve company performance.
3. Creating New Features and Products
The valuable data from customer support interaction, market trends, and competitor analysis can become a milestone for developing new products and features. You can use the information collected through the data to see which features need improvement, what to add to the product catalog to meet customer needs.
Trends and customers’ need change and keeping an eye on these changing customer and market demands can help you stay on top of the trend and build customer loyalty.
4. Improving Customer Service
At the heart of business intelligence lies the idea of increasing business through improving customer service. For example, at AlphaBOLD, we use BI solutions to provide our users with a variety of services.
From offering personalized promotions, sending customized emails, responding to customer feedback, understanding customers, and winning back customers, it’s all about establishing strong footprints in customer service. This improvement can lead to more conversions, better brand image, and customer loyalty.
5. Building Strong Brand Identity
In today’s digital world, your brand image can define the fate of your business. It can make or break it! Now businesses are no more just a commodity. They have personified into an individual – the more unique and distinct their individuality will be, the more buzz they generate. Remember Nike’s ‘Just Do it’ campaign?
Well, that’s what building a strong brand identity is all about. However, Nike couldn’t do it without analyzing Reebok’s strategy. That’s why business intelligence is so important, and you need a business intelligence strategy!
With business intelligence, you can analyze what your competitors are doing – where they are excelling, lacking, and focusing on. You can leverage this information to build your own unique brand identity to stand out and take the cherry on the top.
6. Digitizing Operations and Processes
Implementing business intelligence solutions is only possible if you are running your business online. Sticking to old legacy systems, like manual booking, etc., and business intelligence can’t go together. So, if you plan to embrace business intelligence, it means you will also need to digitize your operations and processes. That’s another hidden plus point of business intelligence. Digitizing your business activities will increase productivity and minimize errors.
Gone are the days when big data was only for big enterprises. Unfortunately, many small businesses are still not aware of the advantages of business intelligence. It’s high time that they should add it to their business plan to bring betterment in the business processes and improve customer service.