How Can a Business Accurately Plan for the Future of Business Intelligence When Needs Change Every Day?

Business Intelligence

It used to be that a corporation or enterprise could dictate software and technology solutions and expect users and team members to fall in line. Whether the solution was user-friendly or supportive of an end-user’s role, the employee had no say in adopting and embracing the software and using it for everyday business analysis.

Today, users play a very important role in informing the direction technology will take within an organization. Their lives as consumers teach them to expect performance, mobility, ease-of-use and interaction, and they expect no less from a business application. When it comes to Business Intelligence Reporting, the scenario is the same. If an organization wishes to cascade strategy and hold employees accountable for results, they must provide sophisticated tools that are easy to use and can provide early warning systems so that users can identify trends, patterns and issues and stay ahead of the competition.

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Three Reasons to Explore Social Media Marketing Using Business Intelligence

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Today, the reach of social media is worldwide and crosses all generations. Every business analyst agrees that an enterprise has to include social media and internet marketing in its strategy, but the experts are still arguing over the possibility of measuring the success of marketing and sales strategies. Every enterprise understands the need to measure and manage results, and therefore some businesses are hesitant to dive into the deep end of the social media pool. Knowing they must justify and monitor investments with hard numbers, business managers may find it difficult to create an appropriate internet marketing campaign and predict results.With the right BI tool, any business can engage in social media marketing, identify the right sites to advertise and craft the right message to attract and retain customers in social media and social networking environs. Here are three (of many) reasons to use of Business Intelligence Tools to analyze opportunities and design the perfect internet marketing campaign:

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Don’t Frustrate Your Audience: Present Concise, Actionable Data with Intuitive BI Reporting Tools

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Every business professional has had the experience of sitting in a meeting and listening to presentation that is dry, and lacks impact. Unfortunately, some of these presentations contain critical information that can support important business decisions. But, the impact of the information is lost in the detail of slides, numbers and statistics.When a business person is asked to make a decision, it is sometimes difficult to sift through all the data and see the patterns, trends and important opportunities hidden in the detail. We would like to think that our team members are capable of selecting the right data and presenting it in an intuitive manner but that is not always the case. Furthermore, even the best, most analytical team member can sometimes miss patterns or fall into the rut of presenting data in the same old way!

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Self-Service Business Intelligence for the Small and Medium Sized Business

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The concept of ‘self serve’ and ‘personalization’ is, I believe, an offshoot of the current state of technology, ease of access and ease-of-use. People are used to having information at their fingertips in a way that is meaningful to them, and serves their needs. Technology users are no longer willing to sacrifice personal requirements or accept a behemoth solution that suits 10% of their needs. As employees, these consumers and individuals bring a similar focus to their use of technology. They are used to having information at their fingertips in every aspect of their lives and they are not willing to give that up when they step into the confines of an office or go on the road to meet with a customer.

If you want to hold your employees accountable and help them contribute to business success, you have to give them the tools they need to understand what is working in their day-to-day business environment, where there are problems, what has to be changed, how their team members are doing in making progress toward goals, and how possible changes in pricing, resources, inventory or other factors might affect the business.

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Forget All Those Myths and Obstacles: Business Intelligence Is More Accessible Than Ever!

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Every enterprise, including small and medium sized companies, understands the value of business intelligence. True business intelligence can help an organization to acquire and retain customers, plan for new product and service initiatives, fix appropriate price points, integrate social media marketing campaigns with other marketing channels, understand and address the competition, budget and forecast for financial success and much more!However, the value of Business Intelligence can sometimes be lost in discussions about the cost of a BI solution, the resources needed to manage the system and the length of time it takes to implement and train users and to achieve ROI. In today’s new technology landscape, these issues are easy to address. If an enterprise takes the time to document and detail its requirements and to select an appropriate system, it can reap the benefits of business intelligence without breaking the bank and with relative ease and definitive success.

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BI – Managed Memory Computing is Superior to InMemory Computing

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Traditional business intelligence tools and corporate performance management solutions typically use an IO-based processing technique that makes the compilation and analysis of data a slow process. It limits processing and speed from hardware resources that use extensive IO to read and write to and from the disk. This challenge can be frustrating for users and for IT staff because it reduces productivity and can overwhelm systems during peak periods.

BI solutions that utilize InMemory Computing are able to load data into memory, and because the process of memory read/write is very efficient and fast as compared to IO-based processing technique, it provides superior performance. However, InMemory Computing requires a lot of memory to serve large data sets and a large user base, and that is an expensive hardware proposition.

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Business and Analytical Considerations for Deriving Business Intelligence from Social Media Networks

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In our previous article, entitled ‘The Provocative Possibilities of Combining Business Intelligence and Social Media’, we talked in generalities about the opportunities of combining BI with Social Media to better leverage the potential of social media networks and internet marketing and to accurately measure the success of these programs and plan for the future.

Social media is a critical component of market success in today’s interactive culture and economy. With an ever increasing user base and ever expanding social media platforms, the focus on marketing, advertising and product and market analysis must include internet marketing, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and social network marketing. Customer and prospects are focused on various personal, consumers, community and business topics and they find, share and express this focus using social media.

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Three Things to Consider When Streamlining Business Intelligence Reporting

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There are many other factors a business must consider when it elects to acquire or change reporting packages. In this article, we will focus on three of the most common problems a business faces in compiling, displaying and analyzing information to gain true business intelligence and create useful, clear reports and presentations.

The problem with cookie cutter solutions is that every business has different requirements and reporting and business intelligence needs are as unique as each business and each employee within that business.

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Ten Business Intelligence Benefits Your Sales Team Cannot Afford to Be Without

Business Intelligence

Successful sales force management is dependent on up-to-date, accurate information. With appropriate, easy access to business intelligence, a Sales Director and Sales Managers can monitor goals and objectives. But, that’s not all a business intelligence tool can do for a sales team. In today’s competitive market, marketing, advertising and sales teams cannot afford to wait to be outstripped by the competition. They must begin to court and engage a customer before the customer has the need for an item. By building brand awareness and improving product and service visibility, the sales team can work seamlessly throughout the marketing and sales channel to educate, and enlighten prospects and then carry them through the process to close the deal. To do that, the sales staff must have a comprehensive understanding of buying behaviors, current issues with existing products, pricing points and the impact of changing prices, products or distribution channels. With access to data integrated from CRM, ERP, warehousing, supply chain management, and other functions and data sources, a sales manager and sales team can create personalized business intelligence dashboards to guide them through the process and to help them analyze and understand trends and patterns before the competition strikes.

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