It’s well known that many businesses and organisations gather and store ever-larger amounts of data as technology gathers pace and data capture and storage methods develop. This data can potentially provide valuable intelligence as to a business’ marketplace, customer behaviour, marketing efficacy, financial position, production efficiency, stock inventory and much more.
Developing effective business intelligence (BI)
The operative word above is ‘potentially’ – your data can only serve you in providing valuable business information that can be used to improve important commercial activities if it’s used effectively in providing you with sound business intelligence (BI) as part of your battery of data analytics services.
To use your data to create effective BI, the following tips may help:
Establish a ‘data democracy’ policy
In the earlier days of BI marketers, financial personnel and production managers would ask the IT department to produce a report: this could sometimes take a while and the report itself often required deciphering by IT people equipped to interpret its findings.
Now though the advance in BI tool tech means almost anyone can view an easy to assimilate dashboard or pull up a report containing the BI they require from their desktop PC or even mobile device.
This way of ensuring BI can be easily put into the hands of those who need it but aren’t necessarily ‘tech savvy’ means knowledge is gained quickly, and fast and effective decisions can be made based on accurate, fresh intelligence.
Using professional data analytics services professionals to create an effective BI set up for you using the latest ‘ user-friendly’ tools means easy to access data visualisation BI is possible.
What do you need to know?
Having a ‘one size fits all’ BI set up is too restrictive: it’s preferable to establish what you need to know (or what the problem is: for example, you may need to solve an issue such as heavy customer returns of a product or falling production figures). Establishing the problem first will inform what metrics are required to analyse and, in effect, what type of data is required to ‘fuel’ the analysis. You’ll have an idea as to the typical information you want to know so this should inform your data gathering, storage, and preparation methods. Experienced data analytics services providers can help with this as part of creating your BI infrastructure.
Keep your BI flexible
Data gathering, storage, and analytics has evolved and will continue to do so, therefore it’s vital you keep monitoring and refining your BI setup to ensure the most accurate and detailed information is informing your decisions.
Reviewing your arrangements regularly is key, and this includes basic data gathering to ensure you’re always gaining as much data as possible from your customers, about your marketplace, marketing efforts and more. A BI facility professionally set up by data analytics services experts can ensure that flexibility and future proofing is built in coupled with ongoing support.
Partnering with a data analytics services professional
To ensure your BI facility is set up in the best way relative to your business requirements with the most appropriate BI tools, it’s advisable to enlist the services of experienced professionals who can create a BI set up appropriate to your business requirements. Not only will this give you an effective BI system for the present, but ongoing support means it can be altered and adapted as tech advances and your needs change.