Origin of Business Intelligence Applications:

The uses of business intelligence tools to enhance your business operations is

not a new concept. In fact, the phrase business intelligence goes back to the
1800s when the term was first used in a book to describe the way a financier
had been outsmarted by competitors who used knowledge of the market to play
it. Of course, we’ll be operating from a more modern understanding of the term:
BI, as we use it today, refers to technologies, practices and applications that
collect, integrate, analyze and present business data with the intention of
making data-driven business decisions.

Compare BI Software Leaders

BI software solutions analyze data that users input and/or are fed from data
sources. Then it organizes that data according to any patterns or trends it finds.
Next, it presents those patterns in visualizations, allowing even users unfamiliar
with any kind of statistical analysis to understand the information being
presented.

An example of data visualization from IBM Cognos BI

With the insights and trends these visualizations make evident, organizations
can come up with up-to-date and well-informed strategies. With the latest
technology and innovations, there are countless BI applications available for
varied types of data analysis.

Any forward-thinking organization should identify what tools market leaders

are offering and how these tools can positively affect their own organization.
Here are four key business intelligence applications that can help improve your
organization’s operations:

Applications of BI

1. Sales Intelligence

A key application of BI focuses on where your business meets the customer.

Customer negotiation is a crucial skill that every organization’s sales
department should foster. Sometimes it can be hard to move leads along the
pipeline and convince potential clients to buy your product or service. Through
the applications of business analytics and intelligence, this process is becoming
smoother and more predictable.

Business intelligence collects data on specific KPIs like customer

demographics, conversion rates, sales metrics, etc. Then it organizes this data
into structured visualizations like graphs, pie charts and scattergrams. Users can
identify trends from this data that provide insights into customer behavior and
business operations. Knowing the customer means you can better serve them!

The reports and dashboards generated by BI are also very useful for backing up
claims with easy-to-interpret data for potential clients. Managers can utilize the
information gleaned from BI analysis to make data-driven decisions based on
hard data and forecasting.

There’s another benefit to the application of business intelligence: in business,

staying a step ahead of your competitors is vital. The data collected by BI
systems helps managers stay informed about where their business is in relation
to different KPIs so they’re never caught unaware. Planning is one of the most
important steps to stay on top of the market in any industry, and BI makes
planning easier than ever before.
This sales overview dashboard from Oracle gives users detailed insight into
their sales metrics

Given the competitiveness of the modern era, great sales opportunities need to
be found and converted as efficiently as possible. BI applications are a great
way to optimize the organization’s sales operations. Sales and marketing teams
can use BI to discover trends in client preferences, letting the organization
maximize sales within their ideal client bases. This helps them focus on
targeting highly-qualified leads and improves everything from conversion rates
to overall profit margins.

Used in conjunction with customer relationship management (CRM) software,

BI offers businesses a sophisticated method for getting up close and personal
with their customers and making informed sales decisions.
2. Visualization

Business intelligence software utilizes a range of data analytic tools that are
designed to analyze and manage data related to your business operations. This
data, presented in the form of visualizations, allows the organization to monitor
logistics, sales, productivity and much more. Some business intelligence
platforms offer custom reporting abilities where users can specify their
parameters. Others offer out-of-the-box reporting templates that already include
industry-standard metrics.

By presenting the data in intuitive visuals and easy to comprehend formats,

business intelligence systems enable even the least experienced employee to
draw insights from data. Instead of relying on trained data scientists to analyze
your data, you can analyze and present your own data to shareholders, other
departments or your teams.

Translating data into visual formats is important for cognitive processing. Our
brains process images 60,000 times faster than text! Let’s look at an example:

In this graphic from Visual Capitalist, the global distribution of wealth is

presented visually. Intellectually, I understand that one percent of the population
owns more wealth than any other population demographic, but what does that
really mean?
By taking the raw data of wealth distribution and portraying it in a simple,
visual way, the abstract numbers become more concrete in our minds. Less than
one percent of the world’s population owns almost 50 percent of all the wealth
in the world! The shocking difference in size between the lowest demographic
of less than 10,000 is even more striking, bringing the concepts of poverty into
focus in a way that simple numbers can’t. This viral video from 2012 generated
a lot of buzz for visualizing the wealth gap in America — the old saying “I’ll
believe it when I see it” can be taken literally when applied to data
visualization.

3. Reporting

A crucial business application of BI is reporting. As we’ve covered, business

intelligence tools collect and study unstructured sets of data in addition to
organizing and using them to generate a range of different types of reports.
These can include staffing, expenses, sales, customer services, and other
processes.

Reporting and data analysis are similar, but they vary significantly in purpose,
delivery, tasks and value. Reporting is the process of organizing data in
summaries with the intention of monitoring business performance. Analysis is
the process of exploring data to extract insights that can be used to improve
business practices.

SAP lets users generate detailed reports

Basically, reporting turns data into plain information. Analysis takes data and
turns it into actionable insights. Both help businesses improve their performance
and monitor operations, but use different methods to do so. Reporting shows
users what’s happening and analysis explains why it’s happening. Both
processes can be carried out using visualizations, but don’t have to.

Business intelligence tools are ideal for handling dynamic data. Historically,
data visualizations were static, and a new one would have to be created for
every variable change. Modern BI software provides interactive dashboards that
can update in real time, offering a new level of usability and agility in data
analysis.

4. Performance management

With BI applications, organizations can monitor goal progress based on pre-

defined or customizable timeframes. The data-driven goals may include project
completion deadlines, target delivery time, or sales goals. For example, if you’d
like to reach a certain sales goal, your BI system can analyze previous months
of data and suggest a reasonable goal to aim for based on past performance.

Microsoft Power BI offers dashboards that give users insight into

performance management metrics
These goals can be tracked closely to deliver gets -time updates on goal
progress. This helps you understand what gaps might remain. Users can set the
system to alert them when they are getting close to a target or if the time limit is
ending and they have yet to reach their goal. This helps managers and
employees alike stay on top of their progress and helps keep teams goal-
oriented.

Users can also monitor goal fulfillment and use progress data to gauge the
overall productivity of an organization. Unlike instances when a substantial
amount of time is lost tracking down or organizing urgently needed data,
information is always readily accessible. This saves businesses time and money
— not to mention makes your lives easier!

How to Choose a BI Tool

Now that we’ve discussed the business applications of BI, you might be
wondering how to go about choosing a software system for your business. So
we’ve compiled a simplified guide to selecting business intelligence software:

Gather Requirements

It’s important to select business intelligence software based on your unique

requirements, so you should start by identifying the most crucial features of BI
that your organization will need to use. It’s better to only choose modules you’ll
definitely use than try to implement a sprawling solution with a huge list of
capabilities that you don’t need. Overbuying raises the cost and decreases the
likelihood of a successful implementation, so starting small is often a safe bet.
You can always upgrade as your company grows!

Compare Tools

Once you have a list of requirements, you can start comparing BI tools based on
how well they meet your unique requirements. Different vendors specialize in
different niches even within the BI field, so we recommend rating solutions
starting with your most desired feature and then working your way down the list
from there. Keep in mind: bigger isn’t always better, and paying more for
quality often makes a big difference in the long run.

Shortlist and Trials

You should have a list of five or six vendors who meet all or most of your
requirements. Now, you have to narrow it down even further. This is when
pricing, demos and trials come into play. Most vendors offer either free trials or
guided demos of their products so users can get a feel for the UI of the system.
Make sure to only select systems you think the majority of your users can
successfully use, and try to keep your budget as flexible as possible to avoid
discounting the perfect match. Find out what kind of user support each vendor
offers, identify whether you need any integrations with other business software
and go forth with confidence!

…………………………….