Today’s users are more sophisticated and demand more personalized, affordable, integrated BI. The evolution of BI continues and you need to be part of it!
Article Source: http://ow.ly/Bk5Lt
Tag: Business Intelligence
Information can move at the speed of light or at a snail’s pace within an organization, and that information can be as crystal-clear as a mountain stream or as muddy as a country field after a rainstorm. The quality and speed of your data depends greatly on the business intelligence solution you choose and the decisions you make regarding deployment, training and implementation. Statistics show that the enterprise that implements BI and makes it mobile and accessible to every user in the organization will be more successful in user adoption, and in leveraging its enterprise data to make concise, confident decisions and improve business results.Getting the right information at the right time, in the right form is essential to every business and every business user. Once an enterprise begins to feel the pinch of growing data volume and finds itself losing track of crucial information or struggling to make sense of its data, it often realizes the need for a business intelligence solution.
When last we saw Mr. Singh in ( The Story of Mr. Singh – Part One: BPO Project Success Driven by Business Intelligence), he had been transformed from an overwhelmed team leader to a hero. With the help of his friend, Raghav (an IT pro who worked in the same building) and a sophisticated, intuitive business intelligence solution, Mr. Singh helped his company to sign a lucrative contract with a client and managed to get himself a promotion in the bargain. Today, Mr. Singh uses a mobile, affordable, practical Business Intelligence solution to manage and monitor all of the data from his projects, his budget, his team resources and more!
The coffee urn was nearly empty and the team was still knee-deep in problems. Mr. Singh was trying to export data from his CRM solution and other systems into an excel spreadsheet to create a report that would offer analytical insight into the performance of his team and its members. Mr. Singh was the leader of the largest team working on an all-important business process outsourcing (BPO) project, and he was in desperate need of concise, clear information. The reports he needed would, in all likelihood, determine the success of the project (and whether he got the promotion he wanted) and dictate whether his team, and the organization for whom they worked, would be granted another project by the same, lucrative, client.
Mr. Singh’s team had performed admirably on their first BPO outing for this client but in order to seal the deal and get the repeat business, they had to illustrate that the team met the project deadlines and worked within the budget. The team had to produce a report that illustrated that the project outcomes were delivered within the quality standards guaranteed by the Service Level Agreement (SLA). In addition, Mr. Singh had to demonstrate that each team member abides by quality standards and performed within established guidelines, and that there was an improvement in the client’s sales performance.
Have you noticed that it is getting harder to tell the difference between human beings and bots? Bots are getting smarter and more sophisticated, and because they simulate human behavior, it is getting harder to tell the difference between bots and human beings. To complicate issues further, there are service providers who offer ‘pay-for-followers’ services to make it look like your business social media page has more fans and followers, e.g., http://socialbuzzstore.com/facebook-likes/ Pay $50, and they will give you 100,000 followers!This brave new world can make it difficult for a business to determine what is happening in the competitive market and, even, how their product, new pricing strategy or promotions are received by customers and prospects. But, if you are a businessperson, there is no reason to despair. It is important to understand that, despite the popularity of bot use, bots will not corrupt true business intelligence or prevent the business from recognizing and pursuing real customers.
It used to be that a corporation or enterprise could dictate software and technology solutions and expect users and team members to fall in line. Whether the solution was user-friendly or supportive of an end-user’s role, the employee had no say in adopting and embracing the software and using it for everyday business analysis.
Today, users play a very important role in informing the direction technology will take within an organization. Their lives as consumers teach them to expect performance, mobility, ease-of-use and interaction, and they expect no less from a business application. When it comes to Business Intelligence Reporting, the scenario is the same. If an organization wishes to cascade strategy and hold employees accountable for results, they must provide sophisticated tools that are easy to use and can provide early warning systems so that users can identify trends, patterns and issues and stay ahead of the competition.
Today, the reach of social media is worldwide and crosses all generations. Every business analyst agrees that an enterprise has to include social media and internet marketing in its strategy, but the experts are still arguing over the possibility of measuring the success of marketing and sales strategies. Every enterprise understands the need to measure and manage results, and therefore some businesses are hesitant to dive into the deep end of the social media pool. Knowing they must justify and monitor investments with hard numbers, business managers may find it difficult to create an appropriate internet marketing campaign and predict results.With the right BI tool, any business can engage in social media marketing, identify the right sites to advertise and craft the right message to attract and retain customers in social media and social networking environs. Here are three (of many) reasons to use of Business Intelligence Tools to analyze opportunities and design the perfect internet marketing campaign:
Every business professional has had the experience of sitting in a meeting and listening to presentation that is dry, and lacks impact. Unfortunately, some of these presentations contain critical information that can support important business decisions. But, the impact of the information is lost in the detail of slides, numbers and statistics.When a business person is asked to make a decision, it is sometimes difficult to sift through all the data and see the patterns, trends and important opportunities hidden in the detail. We would like to think that our team members are capable of selecting the right data and presenting it in an intuitive manner but that is not always the case. Furthermore, even the best, most analytical team member can sometimes miss patterns or fall into the rut of presenting data in the same old way!
There is much research to prove that people listen more attentively when you tell a story. Why deliver dry data in a presentation, on slides or in a report when you can analyze data with BI and find the ‘story’.
Article Source: http://ow.ly/AwJuV
The concept of ‘self serve’ and ‘personalization’ is, I believe, an offshoot of the current state of technology, ease of access and ease-of-use. People are used to having information at their fingertips in a way that is meaningful to them, and serves their needs. Technology users are no longer willing to sacrifice personal requirements or accept a behemoth solution that suits 10% of their needs. As employees, these consumers and individuals bring a similar focus to their use of technology. They are used to having information at their fingertips in every aspect of their lives and they are not willing to give that up when they step into the confines of an office or go on the road to meet with a customer.
If you want to hold your employees accountable and help them contribute to business success, you have to give them the tools they need to understand what is working in their day-to-day business environment, where there are problems, what has to be changed, how their team members are doing in making progress toward goals, and how possible changes in pricing, resources, inventory or other factors might affect the business.
