The world of data can be an intimidating place, without effective systems to catalogue, dissect, examine and otherwise make use of these valuable bits of information. From sales sheets and customer satisfaction analytics to manufacturing output and long tail trends, you need to be able to come to meaningful conclusions about your data, in order to apply it to your company: making improvements, propelling your work forward and creating a more efficient system for growth. Business intelligence utilizes this data, in order to help you understand your business, your employees, your customers and the larger marketplace.

So what is business intelligence and what does it do with data? To put it simply, it’s a data driven and technologically based approach to corporate and business analysis that uses specialized tools to take raw information and convert it to meaningful insights. It’s your high beams on a dark highway or your compass in the wilderness. It’s a key factor in the long-term success of modern businesses.

Here are three areas for examining the impact of business intelligence for decision-making:

Historical Data

Examining historical data is likely the first place your business intelligence is going to be looking. This includes either data collected directly by your company that is related to your sales, performance or other practices, as well as exterior data relating to your industry. While it’s not always considered, third-party data can be a key component in tracing not only your company’s actions and outcomes but also that of your business’ larger industry.

With so many companies collecting a wealth of data, there can be a large number of assets to sift through and insights to gain. Examining this data can be imperative for identifying flaws and breaking down the cause and effect of successes. Utilizing business intelligence to find missed opportunities and undervalued performance can assist in creating a roadmap for the future.

Forecasts

Business intelligence allows you to make informed decisions about your company’s practices and set goals based on hard data. Part of this forecasting: extrapolating on past information to build a more clear picture of where your company or industry will be a month from now, a year from now or further into the future. It helps you plan ahead for potential economic downturns, increased industry growth or other eventualities that may not have been immediately evident in qualitative analysis alone.

Setting KPIs (or “key performance indicators) around business intelligence should be a central tenant in your company’s objective setting arsenal. Whether these goals are customer service, sales, infrastructure or budget based, forecasting helps build smart guidelines to success. Without business intelligence, your company may lack the important insights necessary to drive you forward.

Data Quality

The quality of your data can make a world of difference. While larger amounts of information can help paint a bigger, broader picture, the quality of your data can deeply impact the accuracy and efficiency of your business intelligence. Because of that, companies should consider creating a feedback loop within this process that allows business intelligence to inform data and help adapt data collection and storage.

As business intelligence progresses and helps you improve the data you’re collecting, you’ll have the advantage of statistics of progressively improving value. Ongoing insights allow this to continue happening, as your internal or external business intelligence regularly reports on your outcomes. At Make, business intelligence is deeply ingrained in each of our services and the general way in which we do business. Learn more about our culture and values.

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