Business growth means an increase in the business process complexity. Sometimes, complexity takes a toll on business efficiency. This is when companies take a strategic approach to identify and eliminate inefficiencies, reduce costs, and thereby, improve business results. Business Process Modelling (BPM) is a well-known discipline in this regard.
With the proliferation of the Internet, mobile devices, and wearable, organizations have access to a humongous amount of data, which, when analyzed and used, can help in quickly identifying inefficient processes and improving productivity. Companies have now started using techniques such as machine learning and big data analysis to leverage this data and track, measure, and analyze how efficiently the business processes are working at a very much more granular level.
Today, data has become the key to increasing efficiencies and gaining a competitive edge. Business Analytics has become a fundamental component of next-generation business intelligence. Data analytics empowers organizations to make informed decisions through quick monitoring, reporting, and analysis of business processes. It makes the decision-makers more efficient by providing deeper insights into business activities.
In order to keep pace with the rapidly changing landscape, organizations of small as well as large sizes have started putting together data analytics tools and processes in place.
However, Studies show that nearly 80% of the enterprise data is unstructured. As a first step towards leveraging the power of data, enterprises need to first harness and manage unstructured data through digitization and automation. The next step is the process automation and implementation of workflows. Strategic centralization helps in business process optimization and automation.
Here are a few ways in which Business Intelligence and Analytics can offer tangible business benefits –
Boost in Efficiency
Operational efficiency is one of the top spending drivers for investments in Business Intelligence software. With business analytics, companies can gather a large amount of data at a fast rate and present it in the form of easy-to-understand, visually appealing dashboards to the stakeholders. It helps them make quick decisions and achieve their business goals. With the right utilization of resources and the elimination of unnecessary steps, BI can help enterprises become more efficient and increase their profits and market share.
Smarter Decision-making
Today, enterprises are constantly working towards gaining a competitive advantage – for that to happen, they need to make better decisions about markets, products, operations, and customers. The right BI strategy and tools can help them do this. It helps stakeholders get deeper insights into industry trends and marketing opportunities. It gives them an opportunity to know what exactly the customers are looking for in the products and services and this information can help them tweak the business strategies to better serve the customers’ needs.
Information Accuracy
To make the right decisions, the decision-makers need to have access to the right and most up-to-date information, at the right time. Gone are the days when reports could be created manually and presented after a lag of several days. In today’s time of everyday disruptions, business decision-makers need access to business-critical information in real time. With the right tools, the stakeholders can get access to the most relevant business data through a centralized system – anytime, anywhere. Also, since all the stakeholders are looking at the same centralized data, there is no communication gap or information loss.
Marketing Effectiveness
Marketing is not limited to one or two mediums today. There are various tools and technologies such as mobile apps, social media, analytics, paid campaigns, etc. available. Businesses are always keen to know which campaigns are working well and which need to be tweaked. Using Business Intelligence solutions, companies can quickly gather and analyze complete data, facts, and consumer responses to the campaigns and exactly know the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. It gives them an opportunity to then make required changes without further wasting the marketing budgets on the non-performing campaigns.
Improved Profits
Most of the enterprises have a lot of intelligence hidden in their data. Business intelligence solutions help them mine and analyze that data and make it available at the moment of value to the company. Through better visibility and transparency, companies can empower their employees with real-time data and drive more informed decisions. Such things have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line. Through deeper analysis of the customer needs and behaviors, enterprises can gain better visibility into what they want, when they want it, and how they want it – making it easier to better address the needs of the customers.
Worldwide, several businesses have already seen a positive business impact through the use of business analytics for business process optimization. For example – In an effort to increase spending by the best customers, Pechanga Resort and Casino used data from players’ cards, room registrations, and credit applications and analyzed it to predict the player’s gaming profile and lifetime value. They used this data to assess the effectiveness of promotional campaigns and also optimize the game mix. Through the effective use of real-time data analysis and mobile location services, they were able to come up with creative ways for sales, customer support, and promotions.
While data accumulation and storage have become easier and cheaper, the effective utilization of data requires strategic thinking, vision, leadership, the right planning, and the use of the right tools and technologies.