Data courses through the veins of today’s enterprises—making it more important than ever to be equipped to transform raw information into meaningful insights. Is your company prepared to do so, while spotting market trends and finding new revenue opportunities?
With the right business intelligence (BI) tools, you can confidently tick this checkbox. From in-house and third-party to semi-structured and unstructured, BI tools empower analysts to efficiently access different types of data to improve organizational decisions. Traditionally, these platforms rely on data warehouses to aggregate data from multiple sources into one unified system—resulting in boosted user reporting, charting, and mapping.
A true testament to data being more than just numbers, BI has empowered market-dominating companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Google to drive more personalized user experiences and extraordinary achievements.
Success Story #1: Walmart
As an international powerhouse in the retail industry, Walmart has solidified its reputation with an innovative approach to seamless shopping experiences, both online and in stores. Through their Every Day Low Price approach to pricing, Walmart empowers customers with the convenience of custom one-stop shopping.With relationships tied to multiple suppliers and distribution centers, Walmart operates an intricate and complex supply chain. Any vulnerabilities can result in catastrophic delays and financial damage. By leveraging BI tools, this company is able to gain clearer visibility into the supply chain—from transportation routes to inventory levels. With this information, their teams can streamline operations to reach new levels of success.These tools also enable this retail giant to dissect purchasing patterns and unlock the ability to power data-driven decision-making. By doing so, Walmart is better positioned to analyze copious amounts of retail activity data to rapidly adapt to shifting marketing conditions in real-time.
Success Story #2: Mayo Clinic
One of the world’s largest, integrated, not-for-profit medical groups, Mayo Clinic, is dedicated to unlocking a future where healthcare is readily available and accessible to everyone. Their relentless pursuit of research manifests into opportunities for earlier diagnoses and possibilities for cures.But, to do so, their healthcare teams rely on vast volumes of data across multiple departments—from operational to clinical. Deriving valuable insights from this information is essential to drive more informed decision-making and get ahead of the medical marvel curve. BI tools have opened the door for Mayo Clinic to identify and treat rare ailments by leveraging patient data to create personalized treatment plans—even with conflicting diagnoses.To take it one step further, Mayo Clinic makes use of BI upgrades to make the most of team performance and track management metrics, then shares its expertise with fellow US and Mexico-based healthcare institutions.
Success Story #3: American Express
American Express (AMEX) is a globally integrated payments company that empowers customer journeys through greater access to products and services. Devoted to powering commerce through partnership, this powerful financial institution enables seamless and secure ways to pay—skyrocketing customer satisfaction.
In an effort to develop new payment service products, AMEX has fully embraced the powerful potential BI tools have for business transformation. By experimenting in the Australian market, this company has identified up to 24% of all users who expected to close accounts within four months by leveraging business intelligence technology. Taking this information into account, AMEX was able to strategize its customer retention and fraud detection approach.
To monitor such activity, American Express uses BI technology to gain visibility into its closed-loop system, which generates purchasing data from both the operational and cardholder sides. Their teams then use that data to make personalized recommendations for restaurants and activities to cardholders, based on buying behaviors and spending habits.
Common Obstacles in BI Implementation
Today’s enterprises leverage unprecedented amounts of data daily—further complicating already complex data analytics and reporting processes. While choosing the right BI implementation partner is essential in mitigating these issues, your company first needs to ensure they’re equipped to overcome common obstacles to adoption itself.
Missing the opportunity to align business objectivesWhen it comes to BI investment, many teams overlook the importance of outlining organizational goals before integrating a solution into workstreams. Pursuing a one-size-fits-all tool is one of the primary reasons BI implementation falls to the wayside.Selecting the right software that answers your unique reporting and analytics needs is crucial to ensuring success. By identifying the key metrics you want to track, your teams are better equipped to enhance marketing ROI, boost campaign performance, and improve customer segmentation.
- Investing in a code-led BI platform
With such vast volumes of data powering operations, IT and data engineering teams have a lot on their plates. Investing in a code-led BI platform only adds fuel to the fire due to its time-intensive and inflexible nature—negating the power that leveraging BI tools possesses.
This is why more companies are embracing new-age low-code/no-code solutions that require minimal IT expertise—resulting in rapid reporting and decision-making capabilities. This approach also makes data orchestration and analysis instantaneous while making the user experience more seamless.
Making an inadequate build vs. buy decision
The BI landscape is no stranger to the build vs. buy debate, with companies constantly comparing differences between pre-packaged solutions and business-built intelligence systems. Many enterprises assume that deploying custom-built tools equates to lower prices, but aren’t aware of the reality that comes with their counterparts.
With minor customizations, pre-built software seamlessly meets business needs with minimal risk. Additionally, this approach empowers BI teams to deliver innovative KPIs and operational reports while enabling ad-hoc adjustments.
The Bottom Line
Business intelligence tools are a must-have for your business’ success. By acutely analyzing your raw data and efficiently extracting actionable insights, it’s easier than ever before to bolster ROI on an enterprise-wide scale. Additionally, these solutions visualize information in a way that is more digestible for non-technical users.
But it’s not all about the charts and graphs, BI solutions empower leaders to deepen their understanding of overall operations and consumer behaviors. This equips companies with the expertise to stay competitive by strengthening their strategic initiatives. If you’re looking to lay the foundations for a data-driven workplace, look no further than business intelligence.
