Turning Data into Decisions: How Business Intelligence (BI) Brings Your Company Closer to Clarity

Data is the lifeblood of business. Structured or unstructured, qualitative or quantitative, a business’s data comprises one of its most valuable assets.

But what’s important isn’t simply possessing the necessary data. Your teams must have the propensity to give that data meaning through the lens of business intelligence (BI).

What exactly is BI, and what are the operational benefits of implementing formal BI tools? Read on to find out.What Is Business Intelligence (BI)?

Although data is what fuels the business world, it can’t drive a company forward without the ability to translate it into something actionable. Business intelligence refers to the process of turning that collected data into actionable insights. To accomplish this goal, organizations use a combination of tools and technologies capable of cleaning, curating, and correlating disparate data sources to devise meaning from the data points. Common processes include data mining, data warehousing, data analytics, and data visualization.

In practice, these processes are used in concert to turn raw data into meaningful next steps and protocols. For example, an organization might have multiple data lakes related to customer purchasing. On their own, these data lakes represent untapped potential, but insights are available for those who can connect the dots and understand key relationships. This is the essence of BI. 

By mining data for relevant information—such as the volume of customer churn—and then analyzing this data for patterns that suggest key trends, it’s possible to produce data visualizations that help internal teams and customers see what’s happening when it’s happening and determine why. With this information, leadership teams can initiate strategic business process improvement to advance their organization.

AI’s Role in Business Intelligence

As of recently, AI and machine learning haven’t only become indispensable assets for augmenting BI but have also catalyzed its widespread adoption. These technologies’ unmatched capacity for data processing and pattern recognition has significantly expedited the data capture and in-depth analysis BI tools perform. These capabilities, in tandem with human oversight and expertise, have made the use of BI more impactful than ever before. 

Eight Key Advantages of Business Intelligence

BI effectively answers the question, “What is my data telling me?” It’s a company’s own personal data translator, making it capable of turning surface-level information into deep insights. The resulting visibility creates numerous operational opportunities.

The primary advantages of business intelligence are:

1. Empowered Decision-Making

Often seen as the most significant benefit of using BI, decision-making can improve significantly with it. By providing executives and leadership teams with clear data visualizations based on relevant and accurate information, they can make decisions that are in the best interest of the business at scale.

In other words, they can get a sense of the whole picture—not just bits and pieces of it, driving more informed decision-making. When we’re able to see a challenge from all angles, we’re more likely to find a suitable solution in less time.

2. Data on Demand

Data is dynamic. Every customer interaction, every warehouse delivery, and every product sold generates a host of data that offers the potential for business decision-making and optimization—if companies can get to the data they’re looking for when they need it.

In this instance, the right BI tools make it possible for users to find the appropriate data at the time it’s desired, which allows them to act ASAP. Especially in an increasingly remote world, a business’s ability to reliably access any file at any time on any device anywhere in the world is invaluable because it directly contributes to increased efficiency. 

3. Increased Data Accessibility

Again, data is only useful if an organization can access it where and when it needs it. However, when data is stored across multiple silos that often utilize different platforms, convenient data access becomes a constant struggle.

As a result, IT teams are likely to spend a significant portion of their time attempting to bridge the gaps between these data sources rather than leveraging their insights for growth. Sophisticated data intelligence frameworks make it possible to streamline data access across the organization and control or limit access where necessary. 

4. Enhanced Productivity

Centralizing data access certainly saves time, but better access combined with relevant data insights can lead to enhanced productivity. Equipped with accurate data, companies can create visualizations that speak to current trends, helping IT teams and C-suite executives determine where business operations are working as intended and where improvements are necessary. 

Many Ntiva clients have noted that having everyone on their account management, leadership, or technical teams interact with a unified dashboard has had astonishing benefits to their productivity. However, spending countless hours downloading reports from separate systems and trying to put them all into one dashboard manually can feel like a waste of time (and it likely is).

Instead, using BI means being able to interact with the data, drill down, and digest what is going on, providing a better understanding of business efforts and results. Knowledge derived from subsequent reporting empowers the team to demonstrate the positive impact on customers and uncover new (quantifiable) business priorities.

5. Improved Data Quality

Poor-quality data leads to poor-quality outcomes. For example, if stored data is out of date or improperly placed in the context of customer behavior, businesses might take actions that hurt rather than help their ROI.

Business intelligence tools ensure data quality through in-depth analysis and comparison, which improves outcomes. Through processes such as data profiling, data cleansing, and data validation, these tools can identify and remove redundancies and inconsistencies in data sets, strengthening overall data integrity.

6. Reduced Complexity

Disparate data sources are naturally complex, especially as companies leverage multiple storage mediums, such as on-site servers, collocated data centers, and the cloud. Add the surging use of mobile devices and the uptake in hybrid work environments, and the complexity becomes an ongoing, ever-increasing challenge.

Unstructured data can be particularly challenging to analyze and manage because it lacks a predefined format that can be easily organized or cataloged. BI tools make it possible to sift through various data sources simultaneously, in turn reducing complexity and increasing visibility. 

7. Lower Costs

Although up-front investment in BI solutions is necessary, these tools can ultimately help lower total costs. By leveraging accurate and complete information that’s inherently reliable, companies are less likely to make mistakes that subsequently require them to backtrack on key decisions, rerun analyses, and reevaluate data sources. 

The result is time and money saved. This is especially critical as companies look to launch new technologies, applications, and services across multiple touchpoints; data about consumer use patterns and potential pitfalls can help keep such costs under control.

8. Predicted Insights

As customer preferences evolve and market forces continue to shift, it pays to know what’s coming next. While business intelligence isn’t a crystal ball, it can help offer insights into emerging trends that enable companies to set themselves up for success. Additionally, in-depth trend analysis allows companies to create both short- and long-term business plans that build on current data sources but are agile enough to adapt as trends shift, promoting reliable scalability in an uncertain landscape.

AI contributes immensely to this advantage, quickly establishing itself as a game changer for predictive analysis. AI-driven predictions enable your business to identify opportunities and challenges before they even take place, allowing for progressively proactive decision-making.

Tap into the Advantages of Business Intelligence Systems 

After getting started with a formal BI system, your business will likely uncover all kinds of perks to leveraging these tools in addition to the advantages above. 

Understanding the advantages of business intelligence is just the first step toward enhancing your day-to-day operations. Process optimization doesn’t occur on its own. 

Implementing suitable BI practices demands a robust IT strategy and an expert technology partner to facilitate your pursuit of progress. The strategic combination of capable tech infrastructure and competent specialists—plus the unprecedented power of AI—sets your business up for success in the digital world. You can give your organization the competitive edge it needs by partnering with the IT experts at Ntiva.