Nowadays, organisations gather vast amounts of data from various management systems like ERP or CRM. Unfortunately, most businesses struggle to stay on top of the data since they lack systems to analyse and generate useful information. That’s where business intelligence software tools come in. Business intelligence tools extract data from the management software in your company and generate reports. These reports give you insights into various aspects of your business, from performance to productivity levels and liquidity. Snow’s business intelligence tools reduce the time spent crunching numbers, and you can concentrate on decision-making and other aspects of your business.
Let’s discuss what retail business intelligence software entails and the benefits for managers and other business leaders.
What Is Business Intelligence Software?
Business intelligence software tools help organisations make data-driven decisions by extracting information from data reserves that supports decision-making. The tools include applications and infrastructure that allows access to data and analysis to improve decision-making and performance.
The business intelligence market is growing rapidly since data is becoming a vital aspect of business management. BI solutions can transform raw data from any source and analyse it into helpful information using enrichment and augmentation to create an intuitive presentation of knowledge. When you use retail business intelligence software, you can identify new opportunities for your company by analysing current methodologies, technologies and processes. This information promotes oversight and helps companies have better control of the performance and activities in the business.
BI was a luxury reserved for big organisations with the resources to maintain intelligence tools in the past. However, the BI tools were complex and overwhelmed users with complicated processes. Times have changed, and any business can take advantage of BI tools since they are easier to navigate and are cost-friendly. Modern business intelligence software tools prioritise flexible analysis and speed to insight. They allow organisations to eliminate inefficiencies and drive change based the predictions. Besides, the availability of retail business intelligence software on the cloud ensures real-time access to information and the generation of ad hoc reports.
Why Is Business Intelligence Software Important?
Companies have goals and targets to achieve, and tracking performance against the goals involves gathering necessary data. Nowadays, generating data isn’t a problem since management systems like payroll, CRM and ERP collect vast amounts of data. After gathering the raw data, companies need business intelligence software tools to help them determine the appropriate actions to take to achieve their goals. Some of the benefits of retail business intelligence software include:
• Analysis: BI tools provide tailored analytics from seasonal to trend analysis using different data modelling techniques. That means you can analyse data from sales or payroll from the same platform, and each user can receive tailored information.
• Reports: You can generate various reports from BI tools to assist in decision-making. The reports condense a massive amount of data into readable chunks using statistical analysis, making it easier to identify trends and understand the data. For instance, the ranking reports gives you an analysis of the best and worst-performing facet of the company, while operational reports provide information on daily events and functions in the organisation.
• Real-time monitoring: Business intelligence software tools use real-time data analysis of company operations to enable businesses to make informed decisions. BI tools help you measure key performance indicators in real-time using industry-standard scorecards.
• Collaborative: BI tools allow collaboration within an organisation. Managers can share information with other stakeholders in and out of the company, promoting transparency and decision-making.
• Mobile business intelligence: BI tools provide an immersive mobile experience. That means you can share data views or analyse information from any device. Users have access to reports and an interactive dashboard that enables them to make decisions on the go.
• Data visualisation: BI software tools can convert analysed data into visual representations that are easy to understand. For instance, they can generate charts, graphs and histograms.
How Can Business Intelligence Software Help Managers?
Managers need current and historical data to improve their decision-making process. Business intelligence software tools present various data analyses using real-time and past information. You can leverage the BI tools to conduct competitor and performance analysis and develop ways to improve efficiency and performance in your company. For instance, you can use employee schedules and scorecards to identify inefficiency and develop strategies to improve performance.
Since business intelligence tools can conduct sales analysis, managers can spot market trends and devise ways to improve revenue and increase sales. Without BI software, managers rely on intuition and guesswork when making important decisions that affect the company’s performance and future. However, with the right data, BI tools can help with compliance, inventory management, hiring and improving return on investment. Some of the ways retail business intelligence software helps managers include:
• Analysing customer behaviour
• Competitor analysis
• Tracking performance of every employee or department
• Optimising operations and reducing inefficiencies
• Spotting problems and emerging issues in various departments
• Checking market trends and predicting the success of a new product
• Identifying strategies to increase profits and minimise costs
Who Needs Business Intelligence Software?
The primary benefit of business intelligence software is its ability to support data-driven decisions. It is useful in business departments that generate data pools that require in-depth analysis to benefit decision-makers. Some of the teams and departments that need BI tools include:
• Finance managers: As a finance manager, you need to blend financial data with marketing, operations and sales data to understand factors that affect profit and loss. BI tools simplify the process and provide a comprehensive overview of financial information.
• Marketing managers: Business intelligence software assist marketers in tracking marketing campaigns in real-time. Hence, you can measure performance and develop ways to improve future campaigns.
• Sales teams: Sales managers and their teams use BI tools to access customer profitability, discount analysis and other key performance indicators. A sales manager can also track revenue targets and the status of sales pipelines.
• Operations managers: BI allows managers to analyse supply chain metrics and optimise supply chain processes.
What Is the Best Business Intelligence Software?
Business intelligence software tools facilitate data analysis using information gathered from various databases to provide real-time intelligence for decision-makers. The platform should allow users to import data, customise the dashboards and generate data visualisations from the analysis. Some of the features that the best BI tools have include:
• Customisable dashboards
• Report scheduling
• Multiple types of data visualisations
• Fast data mining capability
• Performance tracking functions using KPIs
• Natural language processing to analyse information from videos and social media platforms
• Intuitive visual analytics
• Data security and quality management features
Quantum Business Intelligence integrates with various databases and performs in-depth analysis of various business functions. You will receive accurate and real-time information to help you make informed business decisions. The self-service reporting capabilities help you generate the reports you need from any device and improve business performance.
Business Intelligence vs Software Developer
Business intelligence software provides analytical tools and generates information that people can use to make informed decisions. Software developers build the software features and incorporate various functions into business intelligence tools to improve performance. Essentially, a software developer determines the operations you can perform from your business intelligence tools.
Conclusion
Business intelligence tools are vital for your company’s success, and you should be mindful of the software you choose for data analysis. The retail business intelligence software should have a customisable dashboard and reporting features to improve your experience. It should also perform various analyses and collaborate with other systems and databases in the company to promote its functionality. Scalability is also crucial since your business is continually growing. You need a platform like Quantum that constantly evolves and provides flexibility to help your company grow.