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Business Intelligence (BI) is a way to make decisions. To illustrate its importance, I will tell a short story.
Once, a few years ago, I went to visit a large client in the food sector, as we were going to carry out an action together with another large company in the sector. This client showed us his experimental kitchen and told us that new product decisions came from there.
The new, experimental products were then submitted for marketing tests. At that time, we did not yet have the amount of data we have today, and responses to tests were done practically manually. Even so, compiling that data helped the company's decision-making. Nowadays, with the big data, the situation is quite different.
Let's delve deeper into the subject in this article, about Business Intelligence and its importance.
Understanding better what Business Intelligence is
As we said, Business Intelligence is linked to decision making, using data, with the aim of understanding whether investments are bringing results. Thus, BI uses tools and software, within a set of processes, to deliver the best information for decision making.
It is also important to understand that, unlike the Marketing Analytics, BI encompasses all sectors of the company, from finance to operational, marketing and commercial.
Within BI we basically have three pillars, which generally follow the data path step by step: data collect; organization and analysis; action and monitoring.
Thus, data is collected, organized in a database and presented visually to facilitate analysis and decision-making where it is subsequently used in practice, monitored and improved.
As you can see, these are constant analysis and improvement processes, whose objective is to assist in the interpretation of data, to identify advantages for the business.
Why is BI so important?
BI helps to structure the strategic planning and business improvements, helping to build solutions for customers. This way, companies can remain competitive against competitors, standing out in the market.
The application of BI allows for more efficient information management, with better identification and application of metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) of the business. Furthermore, the good use of Business Intelligence allows you to optimize processes that can make all the difference, such as product quality (as mentioned in the example above), sales and customer maintenance.
Other important points are linked to identifying failures and new opportunities. Fine-tuning the company's organizational structure and its processes is linked to improved performance. Likewise, BI allows the identification of new opportunities in the market.
Big Data and Business Intelligence
There is a direct relationship between Big Data and Business Intelligence. Although we are talking about data in both cases, the concepts are complementary, but not the same.
The enormous amount of data that current technology allows to collect is analyzed by data specialists, data science professionals, who look for correlations in the information to bring benefits to companies. This is Big Data, which can originate from websites, blogs, social networks, applications, tools and other types of data generators.
In BI, we take Big Data one step further. The data that is structured becomes understanding and guidance for decision making. This information, therefore, already has meaning and relationships with each other, allowing the company to have guidance and create strategies to increase its efficiency and competitiveness.
How to apply Business Intelligence
To apply BI in a functional and assertive way, there are three main points: data quality; clear objectives; adjustments and improvements.
If there is no collection of quality information at the starting point, the entire process may be contaminated. In other words, without quality data, decision-making will be affected at the other end. The information must be easy to interpret, with a quality infrastructure, with access and security rules. Good data governance will be required here.
On the other hand, it is necessary for the company to have clear objectives defined. Knowing the business goals, weaknesses and strengths will make data collection and analysis much more objective. The results will be much faster, as its implementation and analysis will be done in a more objective way.
So, we move on to the third point, adjustments and improvements. If the company has applied the first two efficiently, it will be able to adjust and improve its processes, better identifying bottlenecks and becoming more competitive.
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Marcel Castilho is a specialist in digital marketing, neuromarketing, neuroscience, mindfulness and positive psychology. In addition to being an advertiser, he also has a Master's degree in Neurolinguistic Programming. He is the founder and owner of Vero Comunicação and also the digital agency Vero Contents.
