Business Intelligence: There's More To It Than You Know. Gain New Insight From Old Data

Business Intelligence, as far as I've known it to be, has been all about being able to glean and better understand deep insight about your business such as CRM, ERP, sales and etc. Until a few weeks ago, in speaking with Lars Bjork, CEO of Qliktech, I didn't know there was more to it.

At its basic level, business intelligence (BI) is about connecting your customer information, shipping details, inventory status, sales leads, and other aspects of your business into one or more funnels of intelligence and insight. Things you've probably heard so much about before.

Sure, it's nice to know that your new brand of chicken wings, aluminum siding or payroll service is growing and that in fact more new customers are buying it. But with Business Intelligence you can know WHY they are buying it, how to maximize profitability and what resources might be suffering or lacking due to this new product launch. But wait - there's more.

Instead of considering the use of BI for just managing your business, consider using it for smaller parts of your business. Maybe your sales team has lists of customers in Excel. By tapping the intelligence of a BI tool you'll be able to find the relations and connections between the customers, their purchases, their zip codes and your sales team, to help you sell even more.

Do you get it.

It's much more than the big picture of CRM, ERP and etc. It's about using BI to replace simple tools like Excel and even databases. It's about taking silos of seemingly basic information, and using BI software to get so much more out of it.

If you really want to see what I mean check out some demos of Qlikview here.

Excel can of course display charts and information. But with Qlikview (and I'm sure other BI tools) it's much easier and more powerful. Imagine seeing the same set of Excel data and gaining limited information, imagine seeing powerful charts and graphics which enable you to see your data in powerful new ways. Of course, it's more than just seeing the data, but seeing data that will help you gain insight into new aspects of profitability and opportunities.

tags: bi , business intelligence , qliktech , qlikview | 0 comments