Data is one of the most important assets of a business, the ability to effectively analyze and interpret it determines the success of the company. BI systems are a powerful tool for extracting valuable information from huge amounts of data. They allow not only tracking key performance indicators but also identifying hidden trends, optimizing processes, and improving the quality of decisions. To effectively use the capabilities of BI systems, organizations of different sizes turn to professionals, such as data analytics outsourcing companies who help implement and customize analytical solutions that are ideal for specific business tasks.
What Is BI Analytics?
BI (Business Intelligence) is an automated system, bot, or service that collects information from CRM, ERP, Excel, and Google spreadsheets, and then visualizes the data so that managers can make decisions. So, BI analytics is data visualization that draws conclusions about the state of business processes.
Bi-analytics is sometimes confused with end-to-end analytics, but these are different things. End-to-end analytics determines the effectiveness of marketing and advertising tools, and BI is about all business processes. This data is used by owners, marketers, logisticians, and other employees of the company. In general, analytics is used for the following tasks:
- Optimization. The system finds weak points in the business.
- Introduction of new products.
- Sales analysis.
- Increase profits. Data can show which services or goods are losing demand, and which areas show low efficiency. The analysis will help make corrections to increase profits.
- Purchase planning.
According to a study by the German company BARC, the implementation of a business analytics system improves the following performance indicators of a company:
- 96% increase in customer satisfaction;
- 34% increase in labor productivity;
- 16% increase in revenue;
- 20% decrease in operating expenses.
Naturally, the figures may vary depending on the industry and the specifics of the company, including the decision-making processes within it.
Who Needs BI Analytics?
Data analytics is only possible when there is data. If an entrepreneur is engaged in SMM and does not have a large staff, then, most likely, a standard CRM will be enough for business processes. But if the company has several departments, dozens of employees, different products and sales formats, and online and offline activities, then you can think about partnership with an outsourcing company specializing in data analytics.
BI systems can be used by any company that sells goods or provides services, as well as collects data:
- Industrial enterprises.
- Banks.
- Telecommunication companies.
- IT department.
Signs that you need a BI system:
- Most reports on the company’s activities are contained in disparate Excel files, which do not provide a simple visual picture of what is happening;
- There is no single point of truth in the data and each manager relies on his own data;
- To obtain a new type of report, the company manager has to contact an IT specialist and wait for the report of interest for more than a few days;
- The existing data does not reflect the picture of today;
- There is a desire to move to a new level of quality and speed of decision-making, that is, to implement the so-called Data-driven approach.
Business Opportunities Provided By a BI System
By implementing a BI system, a business can expect the following changes:
- Improving decision-making processes through access to relevant data and analyzing it in real time. This helps make more informed and effective decisions.
- Reducing costs in the form of time and contradictions in decision-making within the company by creating a single point of truth in the company.
- Optimizing business processes. A BI system allows you to identify bottlenecks in business processes, as they become visible on dashboards, and optimize them for greater efficiency.
- Improving production management by tracking production processes and identifying problems that can lead to decreased productivity. This allows you to quickly respond to them and improve production management.
- Improving customer relationship management. A BI business intelligence system allows you to analyze data about customers and their behavior, which helps you better understand their needs and provide better service.
- Increased profits. The system allows you to identify new opportunities to increase profits, for example, by optimizing pricing policies or improving the quality of marketing campaigns.
- Improved financial management by analyzing financial data and identifying problems in financial management, which helps improve financial management and increase business profitability.
Problems With The Implementation of BI Systems
The process of implementing a BI system involves the following stages:
- Integration of the data sources of interest into business intelligence. In most cases, the data sources for a BI system are accounting systems such as 1C, CRM systems, specialized industry information systems, databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, MS SQL, and others), and Excel files.
- Creation of calculated indicators that cannot be obtained directly from existing sources.
- Development of dashboards for selected user groups.
However, when implementing a BI system, you may encounter the following problems:
- Availability and purity of existing data. This point relates to the general culture of data management and depends on the current situation in a particular company. It is most significant when implementing analytical BI systems.
- Misunderstanding of the goals of implementing business analytics and, accordingly, further ways of using dashboards.
- Low involvement of the manager and performers in the project.
- Lack of a dedicated employee responsible for the project implementation result, or distribution of responsibility between several at the same time.
- Wrong choice of a BI system with inappropriate functionality or a system that is difficult to operate.
- Inconsistency in the requirements for the implementation results, including the type of dashboards between the owner and the company managers.
Final Thoughts
Implementation of a BI system is an important step towards optimizing business processes and improving data-driven decision-making. With the help of such systems, organizations can not only increase their efficiency but also significantly improve strategic planning. At the same time, using data analytics services helps configure and integrate BI solutions into business processes as efficiently as possible, providing expert support and access to advanced analytical tools. If you want to get support from a reliable outsourcing company in the field of data analytics, we recommend paying attention to N-iX.
