You may have seen some eye-popping numbers about recent investments in business intelligence. While companies have been spending billions of dollars on BI over the last few years, those that haven’t intend to. Indeed, business intelligence is hot, and for good reason. Business intelligence delivers several important benefits, and its ROI is extremely attractive. One study puts its ROI at $10.66 for every dollar spent.
Other benefits of BI tools include:
- Time savings – In the past, data collection was a time-consuming, cumbersome process that often involved getting IT involved to help you both gather the data and format it properly. Today, BI platforms allow you to find the information you need quickly and easily. With just a few mouse clicks, you can generate detailed reports complete with beautiful data visualizations.
- Collaboration – Many business intelligence solutions include social tools, allowing employees to share reports, comment on data, and more.
- The ability to make sense of data from multiple sources – Business intelligence tools also make connecting to diverse sources a relatively simple matter. Whether you want to compare sales data with national weather trends or examine other key metrics from external databases, business intelligence tools allow you to work with diverse data sources.
- Improved efficiencies – It’s much easier and faster to understand data when it’s presented visually than it is to attempt to make sense of page after page of spreadsheet numbers.
- Increased profits – Business intelligence helps to improve the bottom line in numerous ways such as through productivity gains, better decision making based on customer insights, and increased sales due to your ability to spot trends and identify cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.
- The ability to access visual reports in real-time on any device – Many business intelligence solutions are cloud-based, offering real-time access on virtually any device. It doesn’t matter if you left a stack of printouts back at the office; simply access your BI solution on your smartphone or tablet and get the insights you need with just a few taps.
A survey by Informatica in 2012 revealed that 70 percent of IT and business professionals planned on using business intelligence solutions in the near future. Will you join them?
Sources:
1. Business Intelligence, “Why Invest in Business Intelligence,” – http://businessintelligence.com/bi-insights/invest-business-intelligence/
2. University of Arizona, “Business Intelligence – Benefits,” – http://mosaic.arizona.edu/business_intelligence/advantages
