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Know More About Your Customers With B.I.

February 6, 2009 By SH Leave a Comment

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Succeeding during tough economic times requires companies to work harder and smarter than the competition. Better products and services will have to be created and strong customer relationships will have to be fostered. Fortunately, you can leverage the data that you have about your customers to improve customer satisfaction using business intelligence. By ensuring that your customers are happy now, you can rest assured that the next time they have to pay for a product or service, your company will immediately come to mind.

Leveraging Customer Information
By taking the information that you have and strategizing around what new information to collect, you can use business intelligence to get to know your customers better and make informed decisions on products and services that can help them right now or in the future. With products and services that are uniquely tailored to the customer, your sales team can leverage the results of your analysis to your company’s advantage. Anticipating that your customers might be budgeting and offering them a product that will help them cut costs is one way to gain loyalty and repeat business when money is tight. In addition, being aware of the inevitable for your current consumer base is very important. As much as companies need to attract new business from a younger generation to stay buoyant, they also need to be aware of the changing needs of their current customers in order to capitalize on their hopefully improved purchasing power. By tracking and analyzing customer information, you can anticipate your customers’ needs and desires.

Who can Use Business Intelligence?
Any business that uses an IT system that records and stores data about customer activity, revenue, and profit can benefit from business intelligence. Your company can use BI to determine how well you measure up to customer expectation and where you are lacking. Using the information generated by your business intelligence system, you can decide which direction to go to improve your relationship with your customer and your bottom line. The ability to mine and apply CRM (Customer Relationship Management) principals to your customer data can prove to be invaluable for your sales team regardless of your business’s size. You can focus in on your customer and present them with options that are more appealing to them right off the bat instead of filtering through a variety of products and services to see which one fits while you have them on the phone or in the store.

Business intelligence is only as good as the results it produces for a business, but by using the information you get from your customer data, you can see improvement for your company. The more satisfied your customer, the greater the chance they will remain loyal to your brand. They will be more willing to recommend your product to their friends and more likely to purchase your product over another company’s when the time comes to buy again. Business intelligence can help you gain the advantage over your competition by focusing on your customers in addition to your other Key Performance Indicators.

Filed Under: BI, business intelligence

Data Quality and Predictive Analysis

January 29, 2009 By SH Leave a Comment

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Predictive analysis can be an extremely useful tool for many different types of businesses. In fact, where there is any type of data warehousing there should be implementation of a business intelligence program that includes predictive analysis. However, in order to learn how your business can profit from this facet of business intelligence, you are going to have to understand exactly how and why predictive analysis works.

The main idea of predictive analysis is to use current and past data to predict future events. The goal of the statistical techniques used in predictive analysis is to determine market patterns, identify risks, and predict potential opportunities for growth. In addition, data relationships can be reordered to determine the most plausible outcome of possible solutions and patterns can be recognized that might have the power to alter the outcome of a probable event.

One of the most important aspects to reliable predictive analysis is data quality. The information provided by predictive analysis can only be as effective as the abundance and accuracy of data available. Data quality is absolutely necessary to the process of predictive analysis. In order to attain accurate business intelligence, companies must maintain quality data. Predictive analysis requires both past and current data about many different things including customers, businesses, products, and the economy. All of this information is used to draw relationships and patterns between sets of data. If the data is accurate and well maintained, then the business intelligence produced will be high quality as well.

In the past, predictive analysis was mainly used for newly emerging technologies. However, in recent years these practices have quickly started to become common for mainstream businesses. There are a few differences between the ways that these techniques are currently used and how they were used in the past. One of the main reasons for these differences is why companies use predictive analysis. In the past, these techniques were used for long-term analysis of market and consumer trends. However, in recent years, the mainstream implementation of predictive analysis techniques has tended to focus more on immediate, tactical uses. Because of the “real-time” nature of this business intelligence, more and more companies are using predictive analysis as standard in making predictions about particular industry markets and consumer trends.

Some of the industries that have started utilizing these business intelligence techniques include telecom, insurance, pharmaceutical, and financial industries. All of the companies in these different business sectors have been able to use predictive analysis to make the right decisions to move their businesses in a positive direction. These processes can help with economic predictions as well as predicting the behavior of businesses and consumers. This type of information, made available in an efficient manner by business intelligence, is understandably invaluable. It can turn a simple prediction into intelligence that is more precise than even the most educated guesses. Predictive analysis with appropriate attention paid to data quality has made it easier than ever for businesses to make accurate market and consumer predictions and thus smarter decisions for the growth of their company.

Filed Under: business intelligence, Data Sources, marketing

Business Intelligence Software: CRM

January 26, 2009 By SH 1 Comment

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For many companies a good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) program is a holy grail of sorts. Ideally, a company could implement their business intelligence software to streamline customer interactions allowing for employees to focus their time spend on other business activities , all the while gathering information to use in other business intelligence reports to predict the next big thing. The problem with looking for business intelligence software from that perspective is twofold. First, the company will never find what it’s looking for and secondly, it forgets that a business is its customers. Wise business intelligence professionals have pointed out that the most successful business intelligence programs are ones where realistic expectations have been set internally. Below are a few things to remember when shopping for CRM business intelligence software so that you don’t end up disappointed:

Your Customer
Your customers are going to have as much or more face time with the system you choose than your employees in some cases. Make sure that you pick a software program that is going to appeal to them. Choices are great, but if your customers can’t navigate the system, they’ll probably hang up or log off before you learn what they needed or wanted. Go for customer satisfaction and you’ll never go wrong.

Your Business Intelligence Software Company
The company you pick is going to make a big difference in how easy it is to manage your CRM software. Find a company that can help guide you through the process and is willing to work with you to find the best program for your customers and not just up-sell you on extra bells and whistles. A company that you can work with is going to make it much simpler for you to work with your customers using their software system.

Your People
By choosing a business intelligence software system that is easy to use internally, you can help your employees help your customers more quickly and efficiently. At the end of the day, to provide truly excellent customer service, you need not just a great CRM system, but a great team of customer service representatives who can step in and help the customer if necessary. Your people can get information from your customers that no software system can, but a good CRM system can help you make that information actionable and handle issues or requests that are simple to address. You can learn things from your customers that can help make your CRM better and a good business intelligence software company will help you address those needs as they arise.

Knowing what to expect from your CRM system can help you pick the best one for your company. Just remember your customer, a good business intelligence software provider, and solid support for your system are all very important to your business intelligence initiative and you’ll be on your way to successful CRM that will benefit your company.

Filed Under: business intelligence software, CRM, marketing

Using BI Software to Achieve Success

January 21, 2009 By SH Leave a Comment

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There’s no debating it. These are tough times for the economy. Everywhere you go you hear about how bad the economy is doing, whether it’s news about the stock market, another major company in trouble, or the credit crisis. Making your business successful in times like these may sound like a daunting task, but with the help of business intelligence software your company can still thrive.

The success of your business in any economy relies on a lot more than some data and statistics, but what you do with that data can greatly improve your company. The performance of your company is only as good as the performance of your projects, so having the data to analyze the performance and management of your projects is essential. Business intelligence software allows you to track the performance of your projects and make decisions for your company that will improve both the day-to-day tasks and the overall organization of the company. With the right information, you can make your projects and your company more efficient, focused, and successful, regardless of the economy.

For some companies, being able to see the relationship between differing sets of data is just as important as the data itself. As business intelligence software continues to improve, the ability to analyze those data relationships is also improving. Using business intelligence to understand the complete picture, rather than just the separate pieces, is another tool to stay competitive in a tough economy and keep your business on the path to success.

All of that data isn’t very useful if the software interface isn’t very functional. Many business intelligence software companies are now offering Rich Internet Applications to improve that functionality. Features of such software often include web dashboards, interactive web reports, and the ability to automatically generate spreadsheets that everyone is familiar with.

Don’t let a volatile economy affect the success of your company. Business intelligence software is a key element to guiding your business through the coming months and years, improving performance, and keeping your company focused.

Filed Under: business intelligence software, marketing