{"id":83308,"date":"2019-12-03T19:08:34","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T19:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/2020\/?p=83308"},"modified":"2020-04-21T14:23:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T14:23:17","slug":"this-is-how-you-know-your-business-needs-business-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnnyhuntington.com\/projects\/this-is-how-you-know-your-business-needs-business-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"This is how you know your business needs business intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you have more data than you know what to do with, then it might be time to invest in some Business Intelligence (BI). Many organisations use excel documents or other inappropriate tools to handle their data as they aren\u2019t aware of what BI solutions can offer. This article will look at how BI can help your business \u2013 and how you\u2019ll know when the time is right to implement BI.<\/p>\n<p>Before we start it\u2019s important that you\u2019re aware of what BI actually is. BI is the process of deriving insights from your raw or unstructured data set by turning it into something meaningful. BI solutions help you make sense of your data, enabling you to make better data-driven decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Organisations have plenty of data available to them \u2013 from customer online data, financial data to transactional information. However, this data is useless unless you can make sense of it and derive insights from it. BI solutions can be used to help with company forecasting and supporting your overall business strategy by aligning it with accurate data.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Using BI software can lead to many business benefits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reducing costs<\/li>\n<li>Improving revenue<\/li>\n<li>Competitive advantage<\/li>\n<li>Improved customer satisfaction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>BI is not something that only large enterprises can afford to use. As a result of licensing options and flexibility of the cloud, organisation of all sizes can take advantage of the power of BI.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some indicators that it\u2019s time to implement BI in your organisation:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Plenty of data but no information<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Collecting data is simple. Thanks to the internet and the online activity of customers there is plenty of data available. However, that data is useless unless it has meaning. \u2018Data\u2019 and \u2018Information\u2019 are often thought to be the same thing, however they are very different. Information is what you get when you extract meaning or value from data. Insights can be extracted from information, not from raw data.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re struggling to get valuable information from your data then it might be time for some BI. BI will help you identify trends, find insights and improve your business operations.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><strong>IT control is blocking you<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>When the IT team has control of all the data, it can be difficult to get the reports you need. If you\u2019ve ever tried to create a complex report without using BI, you\u2019ll know that it can require technical skills that mainly people working in IT have.<\/p>\n<p>If you need to make requests to IT every time you need help with a report, it\u2019s going to slow down your productivity and create a bottleneck. If this is the case, you need a BI solution to open the data up to everyone in the organisation. Intuitive BI solutions can be used by employees of all skill levels across the company to make sense of the data.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li><strong>You still use excel for complex data sets<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Excel can be a great tool for working with small data sets, however as soon as you need to complete a task with complex data it gets tricky. Excel is slow and sluggish when working with reports that have large data sets. Any growing business that relies on data will soon outgrow excels capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>Businesses need the accuracy and data capacity of a BI tool to help pull together multiple data sources and make stringent analysis. BI tools will make the collection, consolidation and analysis of information a breeze.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li><strong>Merging different datasets is a nightmare<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Businesses are usually dealing with different data sets from various sources across the business. When the time comes to merge them into one location, that\u2019s when the problems start to occur. Businesses often end up using different systems to run reports, while trying to connect the dots between various data sets which is stressful and tedious. BI tools work across multiple data sources and can complete analysis across data sets in a fraction of the time that ordinary tools can. You can even add more data sets into the mix as they appear and complete further analysis.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li><strong>You\u2019re relying on pie charts to tell a story and deliver KPIs<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>While reports play a key role in data analysis, KPIs are crucial in enabling you to showcase core metrics that guide business strategy. You need your data to inform you which aspects of your business are performing, and which parts are struggling. A simple pie chart is too simple to help provide the detailed analysis needed to take your business in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The modern day business needs a BI tool to ensure they move from a business that is reactive, to a business that is run with real insight and intelligence. If the above factors are true in your business, then its time to explore how a BI solution will help you with data analysis. Do your research and find the right tool that will suit the needs of your business today and aligns with your business strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have more data than you know what to do with, then it might be time to invest in some Business Intelligence (BI). Many organisations use excel documents or other inappropriate tools to handle their data as they aren\u2019t aware of what BI solutions can offer. This article will look at how BI can help your business \u2013 and how you\u2019ll know when the time is right to implement BI. 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