Learn what business intelligence is, business intelligence (BI) applications, tool, examples and how does business intelligence work?
What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence (BI) is a process of analyzing data and converting it into valuable data that helps organizations make actionable decisions. It’s a simple process of collecting data from different sources like IT systems & other sources, preparing it for analysis, and running queries to get helpful information that helps take business operations.
How does Business Intelligence Work?
Business Intelligence is a process that provides useful information after collecting and analyzing the data. This process is used for organizations that help in decision-making for business operations. Many data sources are used to build business intelligence, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and other systems like Salesforce, supply chain information, sales performance dashboard, marketing analysis, telecom data, and metadata.
It’s mainly used to combine all the data, analyze it in-depth and produce valuable data for profitable business activities.
In simple words, Business Intelligence is a process used to find valuable data for specific goals by collecting necessary data, analyzing it, and producing actionable results to fulfill the goals.
Step 1. Collecting the Data
At the very first step, this process starts collecting information from everywhere, like external sources and IT systems, and stores all the necessary information in one place, i.e., data warehouses to be processed.
Step 2. Analyzing the Data
The process starts with analyzing the data and sorting out the most relevant to be analyzed carefully.
Step 3. Produce actionable decisions
Once the data is analyzed completely, the system produces actionable decisions for businesses that help to make the right decisions.
It’s a three-step process of Business Intelligence (BI).
Applications of Business Intelligence
The global market size of BI is expected to reach $33.3 billion by 2025, according to the ReportLinker. Business Intelligence is specifically used to produce valuable information that helps businesses make the right decisions to achieve their goals. And the use of business intelligence is spreaded in various sectors. Nowadays, almost all organizations use Business Intelligence (BI) to find valuable data and implement it for their business growth.
Here are some of the major sectors where BI can be implemented:
1. Retailing
Business Intelligence can be implemented in retail to understand the demand and easily analyze the fluctuations over time. The main purpose of using business intelligence is to understand the size of inventory required to meet customers’ demands. With this method, it’s easy to optimize marketing campaigns and help to grow the retailing business.
2. Banking
In banking, BI can help identify the customer base and help create marketing strategies based on analyzing previous data and producing actionable decisions. It is also helpful in managing large databases for banking purposes.
3. FMCG
Business Intelligence is also used to understand market demand and customer behavior and produce valuable information that helps grow businesses. It also helps in optimizing manufacturing processes and functions for better business functioning.
4. Automobile
In the Automobile Industry, business intelligence is used to optimize production, research, HR, distribution, marketing, and many other functions and analyze previous data to produce effective decisions.
5. Distribution & Logistics
Business Intelligence also helps enhance the communication required for effective operations. It is used to analyze and provide in-depth reports of all the functions of the enterprise.
6. Airways
BI can be beneficial in the ticket management system by analyzing customers’ behavior, predicting future patterns, and improving the flight management system to improve sales and revenue.
7. Manufacturing
BI can make a huge impact in manufacturing by enhancing communication with suppliers and handling all the transactions. BI analyzes the previous data and understands the demand for future products so that businesses work according to their needs.
And many other sectors like services, hospitality, and pharmaceutical where BI can benefit business operations.
Examples of Business Intelligence
Here are some most popular examples of using Business Intelligence (BI) in real-world:
1. Lotte.com: BI used to Increase Revenue
Lotte is one of Korea’s leading internet shopping malls, with 13 million customers.
Challenge: With 1 million website visitors, the company wants to know why customers are abandoning shopping carts
Solution: Now, BI is used to analyze online visitors’ behavior and focus on their interests and reasons for abandonment. According to the report, the company changed customer behavior and online shopping experience and transformed the website.
Results: After implementing new BI-produced actions, customers are increased, and after one year, they hit $10 million in sales.
2. Sabre Airline Solutions: Used BI to accelerate business insights
Sabre Airline Solutions offer booking tools, revenue management, and web and mobile itinerary tools for airlines, hotels, and other companies.
Challenge: Sabre’s clients need advanced tools to provide real-time data on customers’ behavior & actions.
Solution: Sabre developed an enterprise warehouse to store complete data in one place where BI is implemented to get real-time insights that show a complete overview of health, reservations, performance, and booking-related information.
Results: Its results are scalable infrastructure, user-friendly interface, helpful data insights, and client satisfaction.
3. Univision: Used BI to increase market spend efficiency
It’s an American Spanish-language, free-to-air television network.
Challenge: Univision wants more visibility and wants to run targeted campaigns
Solution: With BI, collect information from Facebook and Google and analyze the data to find their targeted audience and the best medium to run profitable campaigns.
Results: Univision hit 80% growth after using BI.
Business Intelligence (BI) Tools
We clearly understand the importance of Business Intelligence, and if you want to use this technology in your business, then there are so many business intelligence tools available. We’ve handpicked the top 3 Business Intelligence Tools to consider for your business. Let’s see!
1. SAP Business Objects
It’s an Intelligence-oriented software used for reporting, analysis, and data visualization. This software is mainly used for customer experience, CRM, digital supply chain, ERP, etc. You can use this software in different sectors like IT, end uses, and management.
2. Yellowfin BI
It’s a business intelligence tool that is an end-to-end analytics platform. You can easily filter tons of data and visualize creatively with this tool. Also, you can use a dashboard for flexible accessibility.
3. QlikSense
QlikSense is an in-depth data analysis platform used to analyze big amounts of data with its user-friendly interface. This tool helps analyze the data and produce valuable results that help businesses grow. Its attractive feature is “Search & Conversational Analytics, ” which helps users easily see natural language insights.
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