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Since the dawn of commerce, merchants and companies have strived to gain a competitive advantage and make their business the most prominent in its industry. Truthfully, not much about that has changed in modern times except for the tools we have at our disposal. Indeed, we’re spoiled rotten compared to the businesspeople of antiquity. Even the pioneers of the Second Industrial Revolution would only be able to marvel at the phenomenon known as industry 4.0, as many of our technological advancements are beyond their wildest dreams. Business intelligence might be the most important technological advancement the business world has seen yet.
Companies all over the United States, and indeed the entire world, are undergoing digital transformation, which is the process of a company moving its entire infrastructure, including business processes and consumer products and services, to digital platforms. As more businesses institute these sweeping changes, business intelligence (BI) becomes increasingly vital to companies trying to evolve with Industry 4.0. Indeed, the right BI management tools make all the difference as we become more and more beholden to digital products and services. So, what is business intelligence, and why does your company need it? We’ll answer that question and more in this brief guide to BI management.
What is business intelligence?
If you’re not an IT professional or enthusiast, you might be wondering what business intelligence is. BI encompasses the tech tools, strategies, business processes, and infrastructures that help companies find useful raw data, implement analytical processing, and yield actionable insights. Robust business intelligence management platforms undergird many of the most vital big data analytics processes, including machine learning, which it also utilizes. You might think BI is new, but the term business intelligence has been around for over 150 years. Of course, they didn’t have the advanced BI tools that we now use for data analytics and other complex processes. However, they understood the importance of getting information before your competitors and acting on it quickly to gain a competitive advantage. Today, we’re lucky to have powerful BI applications and tools that deliver in-depth insights in real-time.
Business intelligence enables companies to personalize customer experiences
In recent years, consumers have come to expect personalized experiences when surfing the net or shopping online, and you can thank business intelligence and big data for that. Data scientists develop machine learning algorithms that enable computers to learn from interactions and create personalized experiences using historic data. With machine learning algorithms, the more people interact with them, the smarter they become. Data scientists do occasionally have to “tune” their algorithms as they can get to the point of knowing consumers “too well” to be effective. However, in business, it’s better to know too much than not enough.
BI tools enable business users to uncover performance metrics
Greater efficiency is something all businesses should strive for. After all, greater efficiency will enable your company to do more while consuming less, which is great for your bottom line. Diagnostic and descriptive analytics provide business users with metrics that enable them to monitor the productivity of everything from machines to marketing campaigns. Furthermore, descriptive analytics provides viable solutions for flaws in business operations.
As you can see, business intelligence tools are essential for growing companies. Powerful BI tools enable business users to turn raw data into actionable insights in real-time or near real-time, giving them a competitive advantage and empowering them to become innovative industry leaders. They can use these insights to provide personalized customer experiences, enhance business processes, improve employee productivity, and forecast and prepare for future events. Truthfully, what can’t you do with the right business intelligence tools? It seems that you’ll have to implement a business intelligence platform to find out for yourself.
