“Intelligence is like an under-garment, important to wear, but one need not necessarily flaunt!”
And when it comes to running a successful business, one cannot undermine the role played by Business Intelligence- Helping run a business, intelligently and more efficiently!
I was recently sitting with a successful entrepreneur, running a big business successfully and leading a very happy, calm and joyous married life, simultaneously. I became somewhat inquisitive and asked him the secret behind being a super successful businessman and a super happy and composed husband, at the same time.
Wearing a very genuine smile, politely he said, “It’s very simple, I avoid using my intelligence when I am at home with my wife and make sure to have a super-efficient business analyst work upon my business strategies and ideas, at office! :)”
Don’t Delay! A Business Analyst Can Help Grow Your Organization
There are numerous compelling reasons of having a BI team within an organization in today’s competitive marketplace.
Providing the greatest “bang for your buck” – having an in-house Business intelligence team, helps your business deliver the greatest REVENUE DRIVEN impact for your organization, as it gives company the data based researched information that can facilitate instant ROI.
It guides businesses to invest in some smart intelligent analytical tools and applications and extract information from the data they collect in order to use it in an effective way.
Let’s understand it better with an example that illustrates a clear demarcation between investing upon sales drop in a quarter “without BI” and that done “by BI.”
Without BI:
Imagine this scenario- Klieve Johns, a finance manager with a Fortune 500 company, receives a voicemail from his CEO, “I’ve just gotten word from Joe (the COO) that our sales were below target for the quarter. Find out why we missed our numbers and get back to me–ASAP!”
Not having any ability to access the information stored in the data warehouse directly, Klieve asks the IT department to create for him a report showing him the sales revenue broken down by region as well as by individual product.
Not able to wait for two weeks that IT will take to create the sophisticated report he requested, Klieve turns instead to polling other people within the organization for their opinions on what caused sales figures sink.
With a short deadline from the CEO for his analysis, Klieve is left with no choice but to use qualitative data – using the opinions of his colleagues as well as his own past experience – in his briefing. Klieve reports back to the CEO, “In the past, when we have not hit our sales targets, it has been because of heavy discounting of our products done in reaction to increasingly fierce competition. We have discounted a bit this quarter and that is the most likely reason for us missing our numbers. I will confirm this with you at the end of the month, once I have received the sales reports from IT.”
Now imagine the same situation – but this time with BI:
“The devil is in the details.”
Klieve hangs up the phone and quickly creates a report himself that shows revenue figures for the various regions of the company. He finds that the company’s sales in the western region of the country were below normal. Digging deeper into the report, he discovers that two particular products did not sell well in that region.
Knowing that one of the strengths of a report created using BI is its ability to be shared with others, Klieve sends this report to other managers in the western region to allow them to lend their expert opinion on the issue. A western region customer service manager creates her own report and finds a large number of complaints logged for the two particular products that Klieve pinpointed in his report.
The reason for the complaints turns out to be a 60% increase in late deliveries of the products.
Armed with this information, Klieve has a specific problem to report – and a specific solution to propose to CEO: fix the deliveries of these two products and sales in the western region will no longer be lagging behind.
Targeted. Effective. Intelligent. Fast, isn’t it!
Business intelligence concepts that can help your business revenues soar
Forecasting and Forewarning: Because there is never just one cockroach in the kitchen. 😉
‘Watch out!’
This is what a Business Intelligence expert makes a business realize. An alarm is signaled by the BI, as soon as some unusual or fishy activity is sniffed within the organization or in the industry.
Whether it’s a sudden sale decline, soaring of the inventory, or a particular brand or entity going in the “Cash Cow” quadrant of the BCG matrix, the BI immediately buzzes without wasting any time.
Usually unheralded, the business intelligence that is almost always overlooked, turns out that one of the hidden trump card- analyzing business information about customers’ past purchasing behavior to grow revenue and retain profitable customers for near future.
Customer segmentation:
Specially for the B2B world, having client segmentation plays a major role in maximizing the revenue. Classifying customers demographically, as well as on the basis of age, need, industry, income and occupation plays a vital role in targeting the activities of sales. The BI, with the help of data and analysis, can help businesses predict customer behavior and plan revenue driving activities accordingly, as per the prospected lead data and derive good funnel from it.
Marketing analysis:
Marketing and sales are invariably the two most important vertebrae of any business’s spine.
Thus, if BI has a role to play in sales targeting, undeniably it has the same in driving marketing activities too. This includes but not limited to analyzing current market trends in the industry, analyzing the ongoing marketing strategies in the company, response of clients to various deals, discounts, bundles and promotional offers and the indirect impact of all this on the company’s ROI.
Channel management:
Channel or partner network has a different gravity for different businesses and industries. Most of the B2B companies face hurdles while devising strategies for choosing and suggesting a particular type of channel network for one business and other network for some other client business and also which partners to target within a channel, that can help the company derive maximum out of the partnership.
BI has a role to play here too. From taking strategic decisions of suggesting a particular channel network for a business client, gaining insight on revenue derived from various channel partner networks and which products and services can be targeted in the market via the best possible channel partner network, are some, out of the many ways that BI can help maximize revenue influx via the channel management.
CRM:
There is an associated idea of a centralized customer information database that can be used for cross-selling and/or up-selling customers. BI helps take the business’s customer relationship service to an altogether high pitch of excellence and profitability, by keeping a check and monitoring the day to day activities. After all, as I’d mentioned in my previous article, written on somewhat similar lines:
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption in our work – he is the purpose of it.
We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.
– Mahatma Gandhi
To Summarize:
The BI concepts help businesses grab opportunities and detailed analytical information about customers’ past purchasing behavior to understand client needs and preferences and hence become more effective at growing revenue and retaining profitable customers.
Using BI to improve revenue generation processes is important from B2B context as well. One can evaluate product sales trends, latest purchasing trends and derive maximum by targeting specific activities over a particular regime of business clients.
The analytical data worked upon by the BI can be used to upstream and downstream supply chain partners as a value-added service that result in competitive advantage and increased revenues. All in all, using BI to improve revenue-generating processes is one of the most effective revenue strategy a company can have.
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