Business intelligence: your data gives you wings!
Business Intelligence (BI) was born in the hands of decision-makers in large companies between 1990 and 2000. The term is used to designate all the concepts, methods and tools used to improve decision-making based on real facts. More specifically, these real facts are the data available in the company's information system thanks to all the digital exchanges.
Since around 2010, business intelligence has been spreading everywhere. So much so that many people, even in small businesses, are benefiting from it without realising it. We're going to tell you how you can make the most of it in your business to accelerate your development, and give you our opinion on Business Intelligence to help you make the best decisions.
CONTENTS
Why has Business Intelligence become so widespread?
In the 90s, there were only two fundamental factors driving the use of Business Intelligence in large companies:
- The volume of data available: in companies with more than 500 employees, you systematically have business software such as ERP, CRM, HR software (payroll, HRIS) as well as cross-functional software such as ERP. The data passing through these information systems can be analysed to diagnose, identify, forecast, project and decide.
- The need for information: managing a large group cuts you off from operations and the reality on the ground. This understanding of the situation, both internally (HR, finance and accounting) and externally (sales), is essential for making decisions. Data analysis is the only way to do that.
Two things have changed since 2010:
- The first is in the way managers and entrepreneurs use information. They are increasingly using online software that is more user-friendly and interconnected, making it easier to exploit the data collected. To give just two examples, invoicing software enables you to optimise your cash flow and reduce your payment times; email marketing software analyses the behaviour of your subscribers to help you craft more relevant messages.
- The second parameter is Big Data. As you can see from the Google Trends graph, interest in this subject has exploded, as has the volume of data created and available on the Internet. Exploiting this data offers applications for everyone: entrepreneurs, managers, marketing and sales managers, etc. :
From the data warehouse to business management
Business Intelligence (BI) is based on data present in the company's information system and externally (Internet, external databases ).
This data is then stored in a data warehouse for analysis. These data warehouses can store very large volumes of structured or unstructured data.
The data is stored in relational databases, flat files or OLAP cubes, which make it possible to integrate several dimensions into the data.
The business intelligence tool then connects to these data sources, if it does not already integrate them. The major trend in BI is to access data sources via the Internet using APIs. The BI software reads the data it needs and outputs it in the form of information (reports and dashboards).
BI projects are generally led by statisticians or data scientists when it comes to analysing and understanding very large volumes of unstructured data. This is known as data mining . However, new data analysis tools such as Vizzboard or Bime have made the creation of dashboards extremely simple. Managers can now build their own reports without necessarily calling on the services of a specialist.
There are now a number of software applications that do more than simply manage the data that users create in the course of their day-to-day activities. Many CRM and marketing software packages crawl the Web to enrich your databases with public information. This is a game-changer, because it increases the power of business intelligence. It allows you to make decisions using more and better data.
Applications of Business Intelligence
Cash management
Cash flow is a fundamental indicator of a company's health. However, many entrepreneurs are unable to manage it effectively because of the time they have to devote to their business. Commercial management, invoicing and accounting software alert you if your cash flow is too high or too low. This software is often connected to your bank to synchronise bank accounts with the software. Lastly, they can be used to monitor payment times, so that you can follow up customers who are late. This significantly improves cash flow.
Cost rationalisation
Commercial management software helps to reduce costs to a strict minimum by pooling the company's information: monitoring suppliers and contracts, optimising stocks, managing sales prices, valuing stocks, and so on. All this data can be used to visualise the company's health, so that you can eliminate drift, invoice at the right price, pay less, reduce your storage space, etc.
Marketing actions
Business intelligence is increasingly benefiting marketers, as data collection and analysis has never been so abundant or so simple. Email marketing software, for example, enables subscribers to be tagged, located and segmented automatically. This segmentation makes it possible to target campaigns (more relevant messages) to increase conversion rates.
IT also assists marketers in their price positioning and their strategic orientation in terms of the marketing mix in general. Tools such as PriceComparator now make real-time competitive intelligence and market research possible.
There is also an abundance of solutions that allow you to cross-reference information to enrich the data you already have: with an email you can obtain a job title, the name of a company, gender, etc.
Financial reports
With an information system consisting of a CRM, an ERP and HR data, it is relatively simple to build financial reports. The strength of today's BI tools is that they read the information in real time: the analyst no longer has to extract and model data, but can immediately build a bor table that is updated each time it is loaded.
Sales forecasts
Most CRM solutions allow you to track sales and the sales pipeline, but few offer realistic sales forecasts that take account of the company's sales context and history. Some BI solutions do, however, make it possible to achieve this objective by basing themselves on old data and seasonality. For example:
Screenshot Bime Analytics
How can BI be used to quickly facilitate decision support?
It's relatively simple to put in place the right foundations to facilitate decision support and improve business management.
First of all, you need to choose open, online software to capitalise on your own data: CRM, invoicing software, HR software, email marketing software, and so on.
Secondly, you need to list the external data sources you can access, such as Google Analytics (your website traffic), Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or external databases (Sparklane, data.gouv.fr, etc.).
Finally, an analyst (in the case of a global BI project) or a business person (HR manager, marketing manager) needs to draw up their KPIs and put the necessary data in front of them to build relevant dashboards.
Data visualisation software such as Vizzboard or Bime will come in at the end of the chain to consolidate all the data and give it meaning.
The meaning you can give to your data is the key to good business management. By using modern tools, you will see that you don't need a computer scientist or mathematician to set up your business intelligence system.
Article translated from French