All levels of an organization can benefit from a business intelligence solution. It simplifies information discovery, provides easy access to data, engages customers, and drives overall revenue. Many small-to-medium sized businesses shy away from a BI solution because of its assumed complexity. However a tool that was once relegated only to the domain of large organizations is now becoming easier to implement, allowing SMBs to better analyze their data.
Simple tools like the dashboard are specifically created for employees who may not have the same technical know-how as their IT staff. Anyone can now harness various amounts of big data to facilitate their daily tasks. Business intelligence ties strategy to metrics to develop a deeper knowledge about daily information. "With technologies such as open source, cloud computing, and newer visualization technology, BI software is becoming more friendly to small and medium sized businesses, allowing them to easily slice-and-dice the information and spot some interesting trends within minutes,” says Mark Greene, technologist at Iconic Mind, an IT consulting company that helps SMBs leverage the use of their technology. Learn how every department within your company can function on a much higher level with a BI tool in place.
Marketing
Business intelligence offers a layered approach to vendor-client relations through big data analytics and multi-channel marketing. With tools like enterprise dashboards and balanced scoreboards, the marketing department can mine customer data for a deeper context. This allows them to refine segmentation, and target specific markets across various channels. Companies that employ these tools can use BI to determine where to place their efforts, and where to space their efforts. Big data is commonly utilized for marketing mix modeling, as well. This allows them to study channels like social media platforms to determine the overall effectiveness of each, and campaign accordingly. BI is connecting marketing to the customer in a deeply involved way.
Customer Service
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools serve as the business intelligence force behind the customer service department. They are simple tools that allow real time interactions with customers. The software is usually set up as a dashboard with a ticket based system. It allows for a two way vendor-client interaction on various platforms. CRM’s usually contain a forum, live chat and help desk. Customers can create and assign their own requests, and manage them in conjunction with the customer service representatives. CRM’s can also be linked to social media to interact with customers and receive feedback. Since the onslaught of social media channels, this tool has become essential to an informed and successful customer service department.
Sales
Sales are perhaps one of the departments that can benefit most from BI software. Solutions like predictive analytics allow the department to forecast in the most refined sense ever. Various amounts of big data can be analyzed to help acquire, retain, and establish lifetime value with customers. What a client buys, where they buy it, and how much they typically spend, can all be computed into a prediction on their future behavior. An organization with a good BI solution in place will have massive input, with little output. Intelligence in business is designed to increase profitability while minimizing expense. Sales intelligence (SI) is a form of business intelligence that is specifically designed to provide real time analysis of sales data sets. It can also identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities in record speed.
Human Resources
Each department has their own unique set of data to contend with. For the human resources department, that involves vast amounts of employee information. A business intelligence solution for HR has to be particularly secure. Employee profiles, wages, benefits, and other classified data must be protected. HR analytics and reporting software is specifically designed to integrate secure data warehousing. It incorporates flexible security levels for various points of end user access. By tailoring access to sensitive data, the entire department can utilize business intelligence for reporting analysis.
Finance
Big data is killing the spreadsheet and finance must find another way to process and analyze the vast amounts of data. Reporting analysis and data warehousing are tools that can be used to discover trending and take swift action. Profit and loss margins are easily accessed, and can be analyzed at a department or group level. A good business intelligence solution for a finance department will be able to perform tasks like: consolidating transactions, instant reporting, and real time analysis. Traditional accounting software is not designed to deliver insight on effective business management - BI software is.
Business intelligence is a growing trend that is useful to everyone. Whether it is analyzing the demographics of the workforce, or engaging on a social platform with a customer, it proves an effective tool across the board. Every department can benefit from the in depth analysis and real time interactions provided by BI. It is a smart, modern solution that has proven success.
Simple tools like the dashboard are specifically created for employees who may not have the same technical know-how as their IT staff. Anyone can now harness various amounts of big data to facilitate their daily tasks. Business intelligence ties strategy to metrics to develop a deeper knowledge about daily information. "With technologies such as open source, cloud computing, and newer visualization technology, BI software is becoming more friendly to small and medium sized businesses, allowing them to easily slice-and-dice the information and spot some interesting trends within minutes,” says Mark Greene, technologist at Iconic Mind, an IT consulting company that helps SMBs leverage the use of their technology. Learn how every department within your company can function on a much higher level with a BI tool in place.
Marketing
Business intelligence offers a layered approach to vendor-client relations through big data analytics and multi-channel marketing. With tools like enterprise dashboards and balanced scoreboards, the marketing department can mine customer data for a deeper context. This allows them to refine segmentation, and target specific markets across various channels. Companies that employ these tools can use BI to determine where to place their efforts, and where to space their efforts. Big data is commonly utilized for marketing mix modeling, as well. This allows them to study channels like social media platforms to determine the overall effectiveness of each, and campaign accordingly. BI is connecting marketing to the customer in a deeply involved way.
Customer Service
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools serve as the business intelligence force behind the customer service department. They are simple tools that allow real time interactions with customers. The software is usually set up as a dashboard with a ticket based system. It allows for a two way vendor-client interaction on various platforms. CRM’s usually contain a forum, live chat and help desk. Customers can create and assign their own requests, and manage them in conjunction with the customer service representatives. CRM’s can also be linked to social media to interact with customers and receive feedback. Since the onslaught of social media channels, this tool has become essential to an informed and successful customer service department.
Sales
Sales are perhaps one of the departments that can benefit most from BI software. Solutions like predictive analytics allow the department to forecast in the most refined sense ever. Various amounts of big data can be analyzed to help acquire, retain, and establish lifetime value with customers. What a client buys, where they buy it, and how much they typically spend, can all be computed into a prediction on their future behavior. An organization with a good BI solution in place will have massive input, with little output. Intelligence in business is designed to increase profitability while minimizing expense. Sales intelligence (SI) is a form of business intelligence that is specifically designed to provide real time analysis of sales data sets. It can also identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities in record speed.
Human Resources
Each department has their own unique set of data to contend with. For the human resources department, that involves vast amounts of employee information. A business intelligence solution for HR has to be particularly secure. Employee profiles, wages, benefits, and other classified data must be protected. HR analytics and reporting software is specifically designed to integrate secure data warehousing. It incorporates flexible security levels for various points of end user access. By tailoring access to sensitive data, the entire department can utilize business intelligence for reporting analysis.
Finance
Big data is killing the spreadsheet and finance must find another way to process and analyze the vast amounts of data. Reporting analysis and data warehousing are tools that can be used to discover trending and take swift action. Profit and loss margins are easily accessed, and can be analyzed at a department or group level. A good business intelligence solution for a finance department will be able to perform tasks like: consolidating transactions, instant reporting, and real time analysis. Traditional accounting software is not designed to deliver insight on effective business management - BI software is.
Business intelligence is a growing trend that is useful to everyone. Whether it is analyzing the demographics of the workforce, or engaging on a social platform with a customer, it proves an effective tool across the board. Every department can benefit from the in depth analysis and real time interactions provided by BI. It is a smart, modern solution that has proven success.
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