Business Intelligence has been a hot topic lately, and that’s a great thing. Business Intelligence, or BI for short, is software that makes it easy for your company to gather and analyze data. The ability to do this easily and in a timely manner greatly improves your ability to compete in your marketplace. In order to best help you understand why BI software is a great addition to any ERP solution I wanted to outline some of my top reasons why BI software improves your bottom line.
BRING BUSINESS ACTIVITIES CLOSER TO CORPORATE STRATEGY
You spent a lot of time crafting your corporate strategy. It covers every aspect of your past, present and where you want to go in the future. You painstakingly made sure everything is outlined so you can better hit your goals and reach the top, but outdated activities, and processes, are continually slowing down the high speed train of success.
To continue with my train analogy, the way you are getting work done is causing unexpected delays at stations throughout the route of your business. BI software helps you set metrics and key performance indicators that make it easy for you to hold employees accountable, and help them better see how they are spending their efforts throughout their day. Better manage the stations, and the train will run on schedule all the time.
QUICK DATA, QUICK ANSWERS
We have all been there, people looking for answers to questions that you haven’t even begun to ask yet. Sometimes this is just the way of the world. When this happens are you what is the first thing you do? Do you start combing through Excel spreadsheets throwing together formulas that give you numbers that kind of seem right? Are you just coming up with answers on the fly in order to keep the bosses happy?
With a good Business Intelligence system in place you can quickly extract pertinent information at a rapid rate. BI gives you the ability to better analyze the information and, retrieve the answers you are looking for quicker, with less heartache than before, making your job easier and keeping your bosses happy in the process.
BETTER INSIGHTS, BETTER CUSTOMERS
Are you busy trying to brainstorm new ways to better help your customers find the solutions they need? Are you spending time and money experimenting on unproven methods and quick fixes? Are you trying to figure out who your best customers are?
Good Business intelligence gives you the ability to dig deeper into your customer’s behavior. This makes it possible for you to better market your company’s solutions to their needs; give them what they want, when they want it. BI also allows you to understand your best customers, analyze why they fit so well, and spend your efforts reaching more people like them.
GIVE YOUR EMPLOYEES REAL POWER
Empowering your employees does many things for your business as a whole, I can (and probably will) write a whole post on just that, but to keep it simple, giving your employees the access to real time data makes them more powerful to your organization. Not everybody thinks in the same way, and in turn, they don’t come up with the same answers to the questions you ask. Giving good data to as many people as possible can create different ideas that your smaller think tanks might not see.
BI software will better increase your “information capital” creating a culture where everyone can become an informed decision maker. Limiting mistakes that are caused by bad, or old, information can drastically reduce costs and time spent throughout your organization. Giving your employees the power and ability to do their job without restrictions caused by bad information increases productivity and just generally makes your employees happier, who doesn’t want happy employees?
Finding a good ERP option, like Acumatica Cloud services, will better enable you to find issues in your current BI, help you correct these issues, and will better help your business succeed in the ever changing environments that the modern business landscape continues to provide.
We at Cortekx want to help you on your journey to better ERP solutions, so contact us and we will get your Train rolling on the right tracks. (Sorry, had to bring it back)