Business Intelligence Is Essential: Five Facts That Make the Case
Countless articles have been written about the growth of data analytics and business intelligence and their impact on organizations of every size. But just like in any other area of a business, the only thing that really convinces anyone is hard, measurable facts. A picture is worth a thousand words, and in business, the same could be said about visual data. Here are five facts that make the case.
1. BI Can Predict What Your Customers Will Do Next
Researchers from the University of Rochester and Microsoft found that, using data from 32,000 days of GPS readings taken from 703 people driving 396 vehicles, they could predict where someone would be with 80% accuracy 80 weeks into the future. While this seems like showing off, forecasts like this have valuable business applications. Knowing a customer’s behavior patterns in advance allows companies to offer custom-tailored offers at the right moment, putting them ahead of competitors still reacting to what already happened. The same logic applies to buying habits, seasonal demand, and service needs.
2. The ROI on BI Is Consistently Strong
Research by Nucleus Research found that business intelligence initiatives returned over $10 for every dollar invested. This figure has been widely cited and directionally consistent with what Blue Margin has observed across client engagements: well-implemented BI consistently delivers returns that are difficult to match with other operational investments. You will be hard pressed to find another investment that returns that kind of multiple for your business.
3. Companies Without BI Experience Measurable Negative Consequences
An effective implementation of BI improves the reliability of your business statistics, improves daily operational efficiency, and enables effective, timely decision-making. Without BI, those areas suffer. IT research group Info-Tech reported that a substantial majority of companies found their daily operations were negatively affected by a lack of accurate, reliable business intelligence. Combined with the benefits BI provides, specifically increases in efficiency and productivity, neglecting to invest in BI carries a real cost that compounds over time as data-driven competitors pull further ahead.
4. Companies That Use BI Make Better, Faster Decisions
Research by Bain and Company found that BI is a common denominator of leading companies. From quick, effective decision-making to bottom-line performance, BI analytics help companies distance themselves from their competition. Specifically, they found companies that effectively use analytics are twice as likely to have top-quartile financial performance, three times more likely to execute decisions as intended, and five times more likely to make decisions much faster than their competition. If you are in a competitive fight for market share, those multipliers matter.
5. BI Is Now Standard, Not Optional
BI was once a capability that only large enterprises could afford to build and maintain. That has changed significantly. Cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure and tools like Power BI have made high-quality business intelligence accessible to mid-market companies at a fraction of the cost and implementation time it required a decade ago. Managed data services have reduced it further still, making it possible for companies without in-house data teams to have the same quality of reporting as companies that have invested heavily in internal infrastructure. Becoming a data-driven organization is no longer a multi-year ERP-scale initiative. For many mid-market companies, the path to a working dashboard is measured in weeks.
If you have questions about business intelligence or want to learn how Power BI can help your business specifically, contact Blue Margin here.
