Business Intelligence- Your Competitive Edge!
Executive Summary
To outshine and outclass the competitions, businesses definitely need to have a competitive advantage against the others. Apart from the product and service features, one also needs to have a complete view of the on-going procedures, changing market trends, and the customer’s purchasing patterns. Such knowledge nuggets, rendered through the rigorous data analysis, help one make better informed decisions; leading to the enhancement in overall work efficiency.
This is what we call Business Intelligence. But this is not the end. It is a very extensive concept- encapsulating myriads of factors, grouting different fault lines, and helping one reap multifaceted benefits. This discussion investigates all these factors while throwing a bright light on the concept and its application.
Discussion
Former General Electric CEO Late Jack Welsh once remarked, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, then don’t compete”!
And, this statement is really an eye-opening guide with multiple elaboration and allusions!
When the market is already inundated, established entities have enticed the clientele, and all are eying and vying for the same spot- what you expect in the absence of something special.
And being special doesn’t always mean having a great USP, or premium quality, or the cost-effectiveness.
Businesses indubitably work for and on the customers, and tracking their patterns with the market insights in mind is what one can work on as one’s superpower!
When your processed data is coupled with the insights from market research then you have one of the strongest competitive edges in the industry. And to corroborate this claim, this whole article is written for the elaboration.
Let’s discuss the details now.
What is Business Intelligence?
Nowadays businesses have accesses to plethora of stats & information that were not at hand before. In this technically advanced, connected, and high-touch world there are myriads of manners to make sense of what these data points suggest. This can be turned into insights and workable business KPIs that businesses can use while making decisions in actual business situations. And this is what Business Intelligence is all about.
Business Intelligence combines analytics, data mining, data visualization, and its related infrastructure to help businesses make more data-driven, result-oriented, informed decisions.
For the assessment in practical terms, one have got the competitive edge if one has the all-inclusive, detailed view of the organization’s data and effectively uses it to make changes, enhance efficiency, and swiftly adapt to the market or supply changes.
The term ‘Business Intelligence’ was first used in 1989 by Howard Dressner, then a research fellow at Gartner Group, as an umbrella term to describe concepts and methods to improve decision making by using fact-based support.
This information has been accessed through the Discussion Paper by Solomon Negash, Paul Gray, titled Business Intelligence. It was published in the Handbook on Decision Support System by Springer in 2008, ISBN: 978–3–540–48715–9, as the Chapter 45 (pp. 175–193) with the same title.
Organizations have some goals and some confusion. To clarify them, track the performance, and attain the goals, there is a need to gather and analyse data. And on the basis of that analysis take the necessary action accordingly. From the technical perspective, the raw data is extracted from the organization’s operation system, processed, and stored as per the availability.
Specialized tools are deployed to process the data pieces and present analytical findings in reports, summaries, dashboards, graphs, charts and maps to provide users with detailed intelligence about the state of the business.
Exemplification
First take a hypothetical & simple example in which a company wants to better manage its erratic supply chain. Here this company needs BI infrastructure to determine where the faults are occurring and where the variability is existing. The BI capabilities can also help them asses which products are the most prone to the delays and which transportation modes were deployed in the deferrals. When there is complete information then the rectifications would be much easier to deploy.
The potentialities of Business Intelligence extend beyond the typical business performance matrices. An organization can use BI to keep a track of member acquisition and retention, automated generation of sales and delivery reports, progress on sales pipeline, and many more.
The Columbus School, Ohio, implemented the BI tools to consider several data points from the attendance to the students’ performances in all aspects. With this they were empowered to improve student learning and pass out rates.
Now take two corporate level examples-
1. Reddit
A social media website, ranking seventh on Alexa’s list of top sites in USA, monetizes its traffic on the power of Business Intelligence.
The time when they had around 430 monthly global visitors, they accrued lots of data to deal with. At their inception the teams were asked to complete one-off requests. This was not only time-taking but also made it hard for the other teams to access the data.
This kind of bottleneck fuzzed the insights and almost made it impossible to harness the monetization opportunities.
After a thorough deliberation, Reddit facilitated complete share of data to all the associated personnel through some centralized tools. This created a culture of ‘data democracy’ with the passage of time.
With this, the sales team became one of the biggest enthusiasts of Business Intelligence and used it to analyse the huge data in thereal time to check when the big brands gets mentioned there. Using some special tools like Google BigQuerry they were able to graphically represent a humungous data with utmost ease and showcased how brands can spontaneously enter the discussions happening round the clock on Reddit.
With the same bottleneck, or say in the absence of their data democracy this kind of feat could never have been achieved.
From the words of Justin Bassett, a data scientist at Reddit, “More people are making discoveries and uncovering answers they couldn’t have found on their own before,” later adding, “Sales have increased dramatically.”
That’s the power of Business Intelligence.
Let’s talk about other talk of the town brand-
2. Netflix
With more than 223 million paid subscribers worldwide, Netflix has reigned as the top OTT content streaming platform. And the secret of this rule is their significant investment in Business Intelligence. Using the advanced data analytics Netflix is able to provide users with tailor-made recommendations, predict the success of original contents even before its launch, offer customized marketing contents, optimize product planning, develop the content that is going to be a big hit, and make the decision making process much more efficient.
It has been discussed that 2013 series ‘House of Cards’ was developed totally on the predications and suggestions from the Business Intelligence. Advanced data analytics & Business Intelligence takes many forms at Netflix, and with this they are able to capture the market as never before!
Business Intelligence vs. Business Analytics
With the previous examples and elaboration, it is easier to conclude that with the Business Intelligence organizations are able to get insights into the current state of their business. Situation of sales prospects, what marketing content might be required for the future endeavours, how many members have been gained or lost this month- are some important aspects associated with the Business Intelligence.
There is other term- Business Analytics, which must not be confused with the Business Intelligence.
Business Intelligence is a descriptive aspect, telling you what has happened in the past and what is happening right now to assist the organizations in various decisions.
While Business Analytics is an overarching term for the predictive techniques of data analytics in all forms. They help you estimate what will happen in future and are also prescriptive. Means, they can tell what organization must be doing to ensure better outcomes.
Business Intelligence aims to deliver a clear-cut picture of current state to the managers (most probably), but the business analytics require expertise of data scientists to analyse, interpret, and predict. Business Intelligence is a relatively easier concept and even the non-technical users can understand and dive into the data to create some reports.
Business Intelligence Strategies
Earlier, it was only the IT professionals who used BI tools and strategies. But the tools & tactics have now evolved to be highly user-friendly and intuitive; enabling users from different domain and divisions to tap the tactics for doozy rewards.
Business Intelligence can be categorized into two main types-
1. Conventional or Classic Business Intelligence
In this traditional approach, professionals use their in-house transactional data to generate various reports. The conventional business intelligence approach is generally opted for special reporting like regulatory compliances or financial statements, where the accuracy is paramount. This intelligence is basically deployed to get reports where 100% accuracy is demanded.
2. Modern Business Intelligence
In the advanced approach the users interact with agile intuitive systems to analyse the data sets. Modern Business Intelligence is deployed when insights regarding changing dynamics or jittery events are required. This kind of Business Intelligence is deployed where being fast is the desideratum while the 100% accuracy doesn’t count.
But in the practical terms, organizations need a strong Business Intelligence framework, with all the tools and practices in the perfect coherence for the overarching amelioration.
Whatever the strategy is, processes and activities in the Business Intelligence domain are almost similar. Major methodological measures include-
1. Data Mining
This first step refers to finding some trends in the large datasets with the help of databases, statistics, and Machine Learning as well.
2. Reporting
The second step is about sharing those uncovered trends with the associated personnel so that they can draw some important conclusions.
3. Performance Benchmarking
After it is the time to compare the current performance data with the historical ones to monitor the performance & progress against the alignment with the goals. Dedicated Dashboards are developed for this step.
4. Descriptive Analytics & Querying
With preliminary data firstly the progress is checked and the related queries are answered through the Business Intelligence Tools.
5. Statistical Analysis
From the descriptive analysis the results are concluded and data is further explored in regards with what actuated the found trend.
6. Data Visualization
When all the queries are addressed, then the processed data is represented in an info-graphic style. This makes one consume a large data easily.
7. Visual Analysis
After the info-graphic presentation, few more trends can be investigated through the visual story. They are checked in this step.
8. Final Preparation
The last step is in regards with the compilation of multiple datasets and their interpretation to make further decisions.
Something Very Important
Well, the types, trends, tips, tactics etc. have been discussed here, and how the organizations leverage this amazing science to enhance business has also been discussed in the disquisition.
Business Intelligence is a very broad term. It is highly extensive and covers almost every aspect, sometime even beyond the ken.
Not only large organizations but even small businesses are leveraging the predictive intelligence to gain better. While talking about business complexes, conglomerates, and the MNCs business intelligence is of great help as they not only have ample amount of data but a strong infrastructure for processing as well.
But being into the market research and a business consultant to myriads of the organizations, I have found that problems related to decision making might exist but a very pressing problem is present in the organization itself.
There are several divisions like marketing, sales, operations, planning, and others, and they all might be doing great on their front. But still there are some issues leading to the poor performances with not so explicit reasons. Businesses are striving hard and doing their best in all the attempts, and still found them reeling against the goals.
Let me answer this complexity!
This is because the different divisions are not aligned on the vision.
This is my observation in almost past two decades.
Marketing team might be perfect on their stand, or the sales team would be flawless in their efforts, still they both can be in siloes or eccentric on the vision- leading to lower ROI or lesser sales.
Here also the Business Intelligence is demanded; to not only assess & investigate the trends for business decisions but also to make the process seamless. AI-powered tools work on the algorithm and are not the sure-shot elixir. One needs to have a broad view on all the aspects and in case of confusion can contact a consultant. But the consultant must have mastered the market trends, have prowess over numbers and insights, and must have the experience of business procedures across all domains.
Business Intelligence, Business Analytics, and the Intellectual Capital are some resources which can render the probabilities of ‘snowball’s chance in hell’ and help you outshine, outsmart, and outclass the competition even when the scenario is bleak… at its peak!
In case of any confusion at any stage or phase or division of your enterprise, irrespective of the domain or dimension, feel free to contact me anytime via any channel. Get instant assessment or clear-cut answer to your problems. Get assistance in researches, consultations, Online Reputation Management, and strategy development as well.
Jaideep Parashar is an internationally acclaimed best-selling author, researcher, business consultant, 2X-CEO, and mentor & business developer of myriads of international organizations.
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