Business Intelligence Software & Its Benefits
Posted on: September 6, 2021
These days, with many companies in every industry making the move toward digital, it’s simply not enough to have a website. There are so many different software tools and analytics solutions you can also implement to provide your business with in-depth, aggregated data to make the best short and long-term decisions for your company. Business intelligence software provides visibility into a variety of aspects of your company at every organizational level.
Synoptix has helped many companies achieve their goals through the use of innovative reporting and intelligence technology. However, it can be complex, which is why we want to break down each and every aspect of business intelligence (BI) software here to give you a better idea of how it works and how it can benefit your company.
What Exactly is Business Intelligence Software?
As mentioned above, BI tools provide detailed insight into a company’s performance and help your employees visualize data in an easy-to-understand way. This makes making decisions based on previous or current performance data much easier than it was before. There’s no need to sift through past quarterly reports or have staff spend time digging up financial records for you to create a comprehensive performance portfolio; BI software makes it all available for you at the simple press of a button. Before diving into the details, we wanted to give you a quick point-by-point breakdown of the benefits of implementing your own BI software, which enables you to:- Connect all your company’s data sources under one umbrella and easily make cross-platform connections.
- Easily visualize and understand your company’s data.
- Discover new insights and where there’s room for improvement to boost profit margins.
- Enable data-driven decision-making at every level of your company.
Why Use Business Intelligence Software?
When it comes to running a company today, we’re living in a data-driven world, and the more information you have at your fingertips the better you’ll be able to keep up with current trends and plan for the future. However, there are three main reasons why using BI software is a must:1. Measure & Understand Company Performance:
Every company relies on key performance indicators (KPIs) as a way to measure success. BI software makes it easy to collect this type of information by giving you an easy way to track those KPIs in real-time. In a simpler sense, BI software can be used to understand precisely why a business is succeeding or failing and not achieving those important metrics for success. By taking a look at the data you gain a better understanding of what needs to be tweaked to better meet your goals. This means that if a particular department or team is falling short of their KPIs, BI software will help you understand where and why, then develop a game plan to get them back on track. As mentioned earlier, having a website and generating traffic and sales is one thing, understanding the exact reason behind it is quite another.2. Data-Driven Decision-Making:
As mentioned earlier, BI software gives you the necessary data to make informed decisions in your company’s best interest. You can use the data you collect for every decision you make and ensure all of your decisions are in the company’s best interest. Data-driven decision-making should be encouraged and take place at every level of your business, from communications, management, and sales teams, to upper-level executives. By using the data you’ve collected, you’ll be able to figure out what marketing campaigns to focus on, which demographics should be targeted, how to optimize your supply chain, what sales prospects to target first, hiring forecasts, and much, much more. When those big decisions are made, always ask where the data came from that resulted in the decision.3. Discover New Actionable Insights:
BI software includes data from everything from CRMs, marketing automation tools, ERP software, spreadsheets, and more. For those assessing this data, it provides an opportunity to take an in-depth look at things, determine correlations between different departments, as well as insights into how they could be working together better. For example, sales tactics used by one department might be having an adverse effect on another, but without collating such data and taking a macro look at things, it’s extremely tough.Are There Different Kinds of Business Intelligence Software?
Most types of BI software have overlapping functionality, but there are some more specialized types that include:- Embedded Business Intelligence Software: There are some BI software platforms that enable companies to track analytics in their different business applications. In most cases, it’s not uncommon for these types of vendors to be the ones that also offer more traditional BI platforms and other options. Basically, a simplified definition of embedded business intelligence software is when a BI vendor allows a business to embed their technology into a business’s applications for a specific purpose. Such solutions are designed to provide self-service functionality, making data-driven decisions easier for regular users.
- Self-Service Business Intelligence Software: For those who want a data-driven culture at every level of their company, self-service business intelligence software is a must. The best part about self-service BI tools is they don’t require any coding knowledge, meaning your IT team can focus on more important things. They’re also extremely user-friendly and come equipped with simple drag-and-drop dashboards, pre-built templates, and more to make it easier for your staff to set them up for their precise needs.
- Data Visualization Software: For those who simply want to track KPIs, a data visualization software application is essential. Data visualization software enables users to build dashboards that will track all of the necessary metrics and company goals in real-time. The only downside to such software is that it doesn’t offer the deep data dive solutions other BI tools do. They only allow teams to focus on the goals and metrics that are right in front of them. However, they will collect data from a variety of different sources, but it will simply be specifically collated to the metrics and KPIs of a specific department.
- Location Intelligence Software: Also referred to as spatial intelligence, this type of BI tool bases aggregated data on maps and spatial data, helping users determine the precise physical location of certain objects. Much like a sales team would search for data and financial patterns with BI software, location intelligence software lets users determine the best place to open a restaurant, or where to expand their operations. Although such tools can be used separately from traditional BI tools, they can also be integrated with additional analytics tools if necessary.
Who Uses Business Intelligence Software?
When it comes to BI software, the sky is the limit. Every team and staff member can benefit from BI tools, such as:- Marketing Teams: Whether your marketing team is running billboard campaigns, email blasts, or digital ad campaigns, BI software can help them track their performance.
- Sales Teams: Sales teams can use BI software to gain insight into prospective accounts, sales performance, pipeline forecasting, and other things. Managers can track both daily as well as long-term sales goals.
- Finance Teams: BI tools come equipped with useful financial reporting software to help accounting teams budget and forecast accordingly. By collating everything from sales to marketing data, financial teams can see things that affect the bottom line that they never would have seen otherwise.
- Operations & Supply Chain Teams: By aligning your BI software with your ERP system, you can track every aspect of your supply chain, from accounting services to supply chain distribution. With the right tools, you’ll be able to save time, resources, and most importantly, money.
- Data Analysts & Scientists: This segment is arguably the biggest user of BI software because they’re trained to create complex queries to dredge up detailed data to give you a deeper understanding of your business. Traditionally, in mid-size companies or larger companies, the data team will be tasked with working alongside every department, from marketing and operations to sales.
