Business Intelligence: Have you ever heard of fast food brands like Burger King or Subway? The two brands previously opened branches in Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s.
After some time, the two of them previously closed for a long time because their business was not successful. Nowadays, of course, you can often see Burger King or Subway being distributed again in several cities in Indonesia.
Not wanting to repeat the same mistakes, both companies need to analyze several factors that have caused past failures and try to improve tactics in the future.
By using historical data to answer “what” and “how” questions, companies can replace old tactics and find solutions. Here’s what the business analyst says.
What is Business Intelligence and Examples?
Business intelligence is a framework that helps in the process of collecting, storing and analyzing data from business operations.
There is business intelligence that can provide detailed real-time business metrics and provide better support for company decision making. Through this mechanism, you can set performance parameters, monitor market trends, and improve virtually all business drivers.
To better understand what business intelligence is, let’s read this example.
In the 1980s, Burger King opened a branch in Indonesia. However, in 1998 they decided to leave and permanently closed due to the impact of the monetary crisis.
After analyzing the triggers and learning from the failures, in 2007 Burger King started opening branches again in Indonesia and still exists today.
Another business intelligence example comes from the Tableau client, HelloFresh.
As a food kit company, HelloFresh faces the challenge of digital marketing reports that are time-consuming, manual, and inefficient. Ultimately, they used BI and were able to save the marketing analyst team 10 to 20 hours of work each day by automating the reporting process.
Not only that, HelloFresh can track and search for real-time data on the behavior of loyal consumers, who can ultimately maximize their marketing campaigns.
What is the Direction of Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence is a process based on technologies and programs that can be used to analyze and present data in any business.
This process is really useful for managers, leaders, founders of startups when making decisions related to the course of the company’s operations. Business intelligence will create new opportunities for business expansion and revenue growth.
The purpose of business intelligence is to simplify the interpretation and presentation of data. Thus, companies can apply effective strategies for long-term business stability.
The business intelligence process can be achieved through various BI tools and methodologies. Later, tools and methodologies help collect data from internal and external sources for analytical purposes and data visualization.
Why is Business Intelligence Important for Companies? (Benefits)
Pranit Vasarla, a data science expert, cited reasons why business intelligence is important to companies, including:
Obtaining Information/Discourse regarding loyal consumers
Effective business intelligence allows businesses to understand their loyal customers by analyzing shopping patterns and creating user profiles. It helps companies create new products and improve user experience.
One of the things that can be managed with BI is customer segmentation, including the types of products that are frequently purchased, when the product is purchased, and how often the customer purchases the product.
There is appropriate segmentation to create a win-win solution for both parties. Loyal customers feel happier because the product meets their needs and the company earns higher revenue.
Obtaining Information/Discourse that can be taken action
One of the most important things when making a business decision is having enough data to support that decision. Information/reasoning resulting from BI is in the form of precise indicators that can be used to make any decisions.
For example, a company wants to know what percentage of loyal customers only put products in their cart without buying them. BI allows it to provide a description of how loyal consumers choose not to make a purchase until a treatment is offered that the company can accept.
Increase Visibility of Business Operations
Companies that apply BI have a better view of what is happening inside the organization. Thus, the company is more aware of the process and can respond more quickly to correct existing errors.
For example, in a logistics company there is a delay in transportation, they will quickly find out where and why the delay occurred. Such operational discourse can help improve their service so that it becomes better.
Increase Effectiveness in the Company
Having a useful BI engine improves the overall efficiency of a company. Why is that?
By making the data available to all teams in the company, you will reduce the wait time for reports. Finally, the team can improve their productivity and get enough information to make certain decisions.
Provide Real-time Data
The BI engine delivers real-time data every time. This is useful for reducing the risk of possible errors that may occur when reporting any important data.
Access to real-time data helps teams in companies make data-driven decisions whenever they need to make decisions. They don’t have to wait for the review team’s report to complete their work.
Better Marketing Strategy
Another benefit of BI is that it allows marketing teams to create more effective marketing campaigns and improve return on investment (ROI) by combining some of the data from previous campaigns.
BI can provide specific metrics needed for campaign tactics, such as customer acquisition cost (CAC), cost per lead (CPL), click through rate (CTR), and many more.
What are Business Intelligence Jobs?
According to Glassdoor, at least the following tasks and responsibilities of business intelligence are:
- Data analysis for patterns and market trends.
- Created a data collection mode for better information collection.
- Use corporate resources for data processing.
- Profile your data.
- Make weekly and monthly reports on past and present market trends.
- Collaborate with your IT team to implement new modes.
- Improve procedures related to filtration steps and get better variety.
- Make sure the team gets enough information and does the right job.
Read: Business Intelligence Analyst: Job Summary, Skill and Income
What are the Important Skills in Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence analysts, of course, must have a high level of business acumen. Moreover, you need important hard skills and soft skills, such as:
- Ability to analyze data.
- Master the basics and tools of business intelligence, such as SAS Business Intelligence and Zoho Analytics.
- Financial management, budgeting and accounting.
- Project management capabilities such as PRINCE2.
- Knowledge of software improvement methodologies, such as Agile.
- Good communication and interpersonal skills.
- Delegation and time management.
- Database management and IT security.
Read: Important Business Intelligence Skills
Differents Between Business Intelligence vs Business Analytics vs Data Analytics?
The specific differences between business intelligence, business analytics, and data analytics have to do with the problems or questions that all three try to answer. The following data is from Tableau and CareerFoundry.
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence focuses on descriptive analytics. This mechanism provides summary historical data to show what has happened and is happening.
BI can answer the “what” and “how” questions so that a company can understand what has been successful and correct some of its failures in the past.
Business Analytics
Unlike business intelligence, business analytics prioritizes predictive analytics. Mechanisms such as data mining, modeling and machine learning are used to determine the likelihood of future outcomes.
BI answers “why” questions that can help companies make better predictions about what will happen. Thus, companies can take into account the changes and changes associated with business tactics.
Data Analytics
If the difference between business intelligence and business analytics can be seen from the questions that need to be answered, then data analytics refers to data processing in general.
This mechanism replaces the data and turns it into a discourse that can be influenced. Data analytics not only recognizes past patterns, but also uses data to predict what might happen in the future.
Go to the article on several types of data analysis to better understand whether they are descriptive, in