march 10, 2023
What is a business intelligence strategy?
Understanding Business Intelligence Strategy
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the tools and techniques used to collect, integrate, analyze, and present business data to support decision-making. A BI strategy is a roadmap that enables organizations to measure their performance and gain competitive advantages by utilizing data mining and statistics to truly listen to their customers.
The Importance of Business Intelligence
BI is crucial for business growth and maintaining a competitive advantage. By recognizing the value of customer information, organizations can keep abreast of changing customer behaviour in the market, alter their strategic vision, and gain new perspectives. BI can also serve as a catalyst for changes such as new product development or product enhancements that are crucial to meeting changing customer demands.
Responsibility for Business Intelligence
While BI is about technology and systems, it also needs to be embedded in and supported by key business areas. A BI strategy should include multiple stakeholders and a sponsor to lead the implementation. BI should be sponsored by an executive who has bottom-line responsibility, a broad picture of the organization’s strategy and goals, and knows how to translate the company mission into mission focused KPIs.
To succeed, a BI strategy must have the support of key business areas from the outset.
IT should be involved to ensure governance, knowledge transfer, data integrity, and the actual implementation.
But every stakeholder and their respective business areas should also be involved throughout the process.
The business as a whole must be willing to dedicate the necessary resources; staff, IT resources, costs, etc.
The best business intelligence strategy lays out these resources in the beginning, with additional wiggle room.
Business intelligence products turn data into insights and actions that organizations can use to increase their understanding of the forces shaping markets and businesses, helping them stay one step ahead of their competitors.
According to a survey of 2600 BI users by BI-Survey.com, the top seven benefits of BI systems are:
-
Faster reporting, analysis or planning
-
More accurate reporting ,analysis or planning
-
Better business decisions
-
Improved data quality
-
Improved employee satisfaction
-
Improved operational efficiency
-
Improved customer satisfaction
Conclusion
If you want to keep abreast of changing customer behaviour, maintain your organization’s competitive advantage, and stay one step ahead of your rivals, then a BI strategy is necessary.
