Business Intelligence As A Key To Success

Business intelligence is defined as the ability of a business entity to understand itself, how it operates and more importantly how its competitors work in the same industry. Business intelligence (BI) is an organization’s way of learning about its market environment and its dynamics. A number of businesses dedicate sufficient portion of their revenues in research in order to learn about their environments but are unsuccessful in capturing the real picture.

It is worth mentioning here that gaining BI is a simple process and is more or less the same in every business structure and organization. It is however not to be confused as a project but as a process that will allow access to knowledge which must be integrated into the decision making processes. At the top management level, BI normally translates into two very specific and very complex perspectives, namely Competitor Intelligence and Market Intelligence. For inline managers and employees who are directly connected to the work, BI, is simply knowing about the ins and outs of the business and how it runs. With the advent of various technological tools in recent times, BI is now a means to gather and analyze plethora of data and information regarding the organizations processes and operations. One of the best ways to gain BI is to focus on the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). For each organization, the KPIs will be different depending upon the nature of the business, the industry, the target market and the strategic goals. Most common KPIs however refer to the overall sales, revenue, customers and stock.

Gaining Customer Intelligence (CI) too is a part of BI as it helps organizations to gather and to analyze data regarding their competitors. Successful companies not only gather this data but also learn from the same, and apply the learning into their own operations. A thorough CI will give an accurate picture of the information, scope and success of the products and services offered by the competitor. In addition, it will also allow companies to learn about the nature and needs of the target market.

BI enables organizations to make accurate decisions, identify new market opportunities and to implement successful strategies. It is the most important tool that can be used to refine and to nurture the relationship of a company with its customers and to understand its competitors. Enhanced decision making and improved planning performance are just some of the benefits of BI. A good BI will help to improve the management quality and will facilitate good communications among different units and departments of the organization.

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