Business Intelligence helps in strategic decision making

Technology and business are escalating competition to the edge, clouding the industrial boundaries, resulting in significant re-arrangement of business. It has made it possible for organizations to pile on large volumes of data from disparate sources through business processes. To stay competitive in the face of these difficult times and fierce competition, a tool is required which will provide a holistic view of the operating environment and help to make meaningful decisions. 

How do you plan to turn huge unstructured data into something useful? The answer lies in Business Intelligence. Business Intelligence (BI) offers the capability to get a 360-degree view of all aspects of your business and the possibility to perform analytics operations about situations that require more clarity on their behavior. So, What is Business Intelligence?

What is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence is a set of practices of collecting, analyzing, structuring, interpreting and turning raw information into actionable business insights. BI consists of tools and methodologies that can transform unstructured data sets, compiling them into easy reports and dashboards. The main aim of BI is to deliver insights into complex situations and support data-driven decision making. The entire process of BI is classified into four stages such as data gathering, cleaning, analyzing and reporting. 

The definition of business intelligence is often puzzling as it spans with other knowledge spheres, particularly Predictive Analytics. One of the biggest misconceptions is using predictive analytics and BI reciprocally. Predictive analytics is related to forecasts based on data processing of past events. Instead of showing overview of historic events, it makes forecasts about future trends in business through past event analysis. It is considered as the next stage of BI. 

Read more: What are the benefits of business intelligence?

How do Business Intelligence helps in strategic decision making?

Usually companies invest a lot in developing and implementing various tools for enabling decision making in business. These tools can be in the form of dashboards, analytics reports, ad-hoc reports, business intelligence tools, applications, etc. And, at the end these tools help in transforming the way decision making is organized and the way risk is managed. 

Good decisions lead to better results in business. With a proper analysis of data, a company can make intelligent decisions. Being able to collect data from multiple disparate sources can bring a lot of value. 

Using BI service, you can extract critical information from huge data sets (both unstructured and structured) into informative insights that reveal the fundamental currents of customer behavior, their likes and dislikes, online shopping experience, using which companies can make strategic decisions to attain business productivity and operational efficiency.

Every data center handles millions of customer interactions that hold untapped potential which if added can bring immense value to the business. Apart from this advantage, there are some advantages companies can attain because of business intelligence: 

Improve business productivity

Today businesses of all sizes are looking to channelize crucial resources and workforce. BI gathering work is handled by a specific team, as they focus on pulling up critical information from customer interactions and represent them in a manner that is easier to understand, execute and communicate. The BI team ensures that all the detailed reports are delivered to the company in a well documented and presentable format. This results in cost savings, higher efficiency, time savings, and business productivity. 

Crucial information easily accessed

BI offers vital information to companies, improving their ability to make better decisions quickly and generate a competitive advantage.

Better Return on Investment (ROI)

Business Intelligence ensures higher ROI as companies can considerably diminish costs, increase revenue, improve margin, drive cost elimination and much more. Plus, BI ensures qualitative ROI including improvements in process and business efficiency, better strategic decision-making, and improved customer satisfaction. 

Informed decision making

When reporting is based on precise and timely data, it helps companies measure their process performance. BI enables companies to make informed decisions on various strategic issues by providing critical data on current and historical performance of the company along with expected demands, future trends, etc.