Business Intelligence: From Data to Strategic Decisions

Always striving for growth and innovation, today's businesses are driven by Big Data. By letting you view, analyze, and compare all your organization's data, Business Intelligence paves the way toward better-informed decisions at the strategic, financial, and operational levels. But how do you make sense of it all and get the right data to speak to you?

Business Intelligence, a powerful ally for informed decision-makers
BI assists decision-makers at all levels who want to visualize, in real-time, their organization's many performance indicators (KPIs) without having to spend hours sifting through data. No more corrupt Excel files—with BI, your data is automatically compiled in a protected database. Each department can access relevant information in just a few clicks and thus better align its actions with performance-driven objectives.

BI and your company
Imagine if, instead of measuring your teams' productivity every week, you were kept up to speed in real-time? Corrective actions could be taken immediately instead of the following week. By providing your managers and decision-makers with powerful performance indicators, you give them the ability to act when it matters. Simply put, BI optimizes business efficiency and, in turn, profitability. By being genuinely proactive, you gain a clear competitive advantage.

Consider sales and marketing. How much time do you spend retrieving data from the previous quarter? Think about finances, operations, or even maintenance—do your managers know the real cost of training a new employee? Can you attach a dollar sign to a lost day caused by broken assembly-line machinery? Answering these sorts of questions can be a daunting task that takes weeks. By the time you intervene, it may be too late. Instead of forcing you to exert all your energy compiling and sorting through data, BI lets you analyze results and act immediately, day in and day out. Now just imagine the value it can bring to your business quarter after quarter…

BI and your employees
To increase your workforce's autonomy and agility, you can make a KPI dashboard accessible to employees. Designed with data protection top of mind, these dashboards let you manage access from anywhere at any time. By equipping key players with real-time data visualization, your managers can make moves strategically and with greater precision. This is what's known as data-driven decision making.

What to measure, how to measure it, and why you need it
Most businesses understand that data comes from a wide variety of internal and external sources. But how do you sort out which ones are most crucial for your objectives? BI experts can often identify more than 60 different data sources for a company, regardless of industry. Do you know your business's best data sources? And if so, do you understand how to compile and analyze everything properly? Just think about how much this data can reveal.

Business Intelligence supported by Microsoft Power BI
Tools such as Microsoft's Power BI use interactive dashboards, letting you track up-to-the-second performance indicators and progress from anywhere. Highly precise, these cloud-based tools give you a clear and secure view of what matters most for your business. And the best part is, it's incredibly intuitive! You don't have to be a BI analyst to harness the power of these dashboards. With that said, when it comes to identifying, extracting, processing, and compiling data, it's good to have an expert on hand who can effectively filter everything and extract only the relevant data to generate meaningful metrics.

Entrust the job to BI experts
Unquestionably, precise planning and project calibrating are crucial in getting the most out of BI. Often overlooked, the first (and arguably most important) step is analysis. Understanding a business's objectives in a way that accounts for its needs, priorities, but also ROI should establish the scope of the project. For instance, identifying data sources is one thing, but extracting, storing, and processing your valuable information may require software upgrades. By working with an expert BI firm, you get a detailed game plan that accounts for your project's many variables: analysis, development, deployment, and training so your team can effortlessly embrace this new technology.

Organizational change management
Business Intelligence is an essential ingredient in modernizing operations. It bolsters leadership not only for management but also for anyone called upon to make critical decisions. BI optimizes operational agility and team efficiency so you can better achieve objectives and boost profits. Are you ready for Data-Driven Business?