Business intelligence (BI) is a business management term, which refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information about company operations. Business intelligence systems can help companies to have a more comprehensive knowledge of the factors affecting their business, such as metrics on sales, production, internal operations, and they can help companies to make better business decisions.
1. Benefits of Business Intelligence (BI):
- to enable companies to make more suitable business decisions, and it may give a company a competitive advantage.
- to help companies to analyze the following: changing trends in market, changes in customer behavior and spending patterns, customer preferences, company capabilities and market conditions.
- to help analysts and managers to determine which adjustments are most likely to affect trends.
- to analyze information from indicators in the external environment and forecast the future trends in their sector.
- to improve the timeliness and quality of information and enable managers to better understand the position of their companies in comparison to its competitors.
- to enhance communication among departments, coordinate activities, and enable companies to respond more quickly to changes (e.g., in financial conditions, customer preferences, supply chain operations, etc.).
- to enables companies to gather information on the trends in the marketplace and come up with innovative products or services in anticipation of customer's changing demands.
- to help managers to be better informed about actions of competitors.
- to help companies to share selected strategic information with business partners, e.g. share information with their suppliers (e.g., inventory levels, performance metrics, and other supply chain data).
2. Tools - BI systems:
- to help companies to develop consistent and "data-based" business decisions--producing better results than basing decisions on "guess".
- to improve a company's performance if a BI system is well-designed and properly integrated into a company's processes and decision-making process.
- to expedite decision-making and improve customers' experience by having access to timely and accurate information is an important resource for a company.
- to provide managers with information on the state of economic trends or marketplace factors, or to provide managers with in depth knowledge about the internal operations of a business.
3. Key Intelligence Topics
Business intelligence often uses Key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the present state of business and to prescribe a course of action. Prior to the widespread adoption of computer and web applications, when information had to be manually inputted and calculated, performance data was often not available for weeks or months.
BI Services & Solutions:
a. Business Intelligence Diagnostics
With the Business Intelligence Diagnostic, Reachtop Consulting Limited helps companies to assess their current Business Intelligence capabilities, identify value generating opportunities and develop a plan to address those opportunities quickly and economically.
The Business Intelligence Diagnostic is particularly beneficial for companies that either lack a cohesive information management strategy or are frustrated by their inability to use information to drive better decision making.
b. Enterprise Metrics Management
For companies in any industry, the journey to high performance is a blind trek if they cannot tell how fast they are moving or how far they have traveled. An appropriate and consistent set of easily-understood performance metrics needs to be within quick access. This requires comprehensive metrics frameworks and automated management capabilities.
Taking the next step to a comprehensive system for managing enterprise metrics has been daunting for a number of reasons:
- There is no consistent framework of essential metrics.
- Analysis of data interrelationships—so vital to decision making—is difficult.
- Visibility into metrics is uneven.
- Metrics are a moving target.
Reachtop Consulting Limited can help, with a proven approach to enterprise metrics management.
c. Business Intelligence Sourcing Services
For companies seeking to outsource their Business Intelligence development and operations, Reachtop Consulting Limited offers unique sourcing options that draw on onsite and offsite processes, methodologies, tools and delivery centers.
Using our internal Business Intelligence competency centers, Reachtop Consulting Limited can deliver a highly effective and cost efficient Business Intelligence capability.
