3 Signs You’re Ready for BI

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Collecting and analyzing data gives you important insights into trends in your business, which allows you to make more informed decisions for its future. Business Intelligence software helps you simplify these processes to translate data into critical information in real-time. Here are three signs you’re ready for a BI solution.

1. Your Reports Can’t be Constructed Fast Enough

You have data that needs to be analyzed and used to construct meaningful reports. You inform your IT department of the required report, and they let you know that it will be ready for you in three days. Three days later, while reviewing the report you realize that there is missing information, or that the information in the report is not displayed correctly. You then need to send it back to IT for the changes to be made, which will take another day or two. In some cases, it may take IT multiple edits to create the report that you envisioned which wastes precious time and resources. All the while you’re losing the ability to use the report for time-sensitive decisions. BI removes these problems from the data equation, at the same time allowing you to create and edit the reports instantly using real-time data.

2. Your Data and Reports are Inconsistent 

Inconsistent data leads to inaccurate reporting, which can then lead to making misinformed decisions solely based on faulty information. Inconsistent data can be the result of complex processes, or simply human error. BI software centralizes your data and establishes automated and streamlined processes, eliminating inconsistencies in how your data is reported.

3. Can’t make sense of your data- Are these fields consistent?

Your data is spread across many business applications; each application serving unique and vital functions. Aggregating and organizing the totality, sourced from each platform, is generally impossible as each data set needs to be converted to a common “language”. The goal is to make it possible to easily manipulate and make sense of one of your most valuable resources. BI software converts the data sets, allowing you to leverage the data you have already collected. Accurate reporting provides insight into your business which gives you the power to make the best decisions for your business.

Final Thoughts

Informed businesses look to gather data and analyze it to make more educated decisions regarding all aspects of their business. Optimizing this process using a BI solution also enables the mining of even more information out of their data while simplifying the processes surrounding the reporting and analysis. If you see the value BI can bring to your business, make sure your business is prepared to adopt it. Creating a detailed strategy for your BI solution is possibly one of the most important steps to complete prior to the adoption or construction of a solution. See our article “5 Topics to Consider About Your Data Before BI” to see how you can further prepare for a BI software solution.

 

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5 Topics to Consider About Your Data Before BI

We’re all looking for the best way to ensure our companies are as productive and efficient as possible. Taking advantage of Business Intelligence software has become a common vehicle to increase our bottom lines and ensure we are allocating our resources in the proper places. What many companies find is that there may be some steps that may need to be taken when it comes to implementing BI. Some others just don’t feel like they’re ready, as they haven’t been given the opportunity to have their questions answered or had the necessary steps broken down in the appropriate terminology. There are many BI options to choose from, and each has their own advantages and limitations, so choosing the best fit can also seem daunting. What we want to share is that the path becomes much easier once you’ve taken the first and most important step; ensuring that your data is ready for BI software.

 
Every business is unique and has its share of complexities and challenges. The data being generated by every industry is different, it contains the jewels of information about various business processes and customers and is available in abundance in every division. A company’s success is highly dependent on the appropriate utilization of the data they have now more than ever, and a smart business intelligence solution that can quickly transform volumes of data into understandable graphical charts in real time is always a great investment.

Below are 5 simple and important topics you should consider about your data before selecting a business intelligence solution;

Sources:

What are your sources? Determine which data sources you currently have and decide which are necessary for your business intelligence strategy. The most common of these are:

  • Databases
  • Flat files
  • Web services
  • Other sources such as RSS feeds

Data Hygiene:

You need to be able to trust the data coming into your BI solution.  Customer data is the core of your organization. It allows you to engage with customers and prospects to deliver exactly what they need. Customer data is only as valuable as it is accurate, so it’s crucial that you have confidence in the data that is influencing your decisions. By cleansing your data, you will be able to ensure that the decisions you make are based on accurate reports. Having confidence in the ability to make key decisions based on factual evidence provides you with the ability to make the correct decisions to advance your company.

Timing:

How fresh does your data need to be? Do you need it near real-time or does daily/weekly/monthly suffice? This is something that many people overlook. Some decisions are actually better made by analyzing trends in past data, while others greatly benefit from instant reporting. Having both of these abilities is important, but looking at which set of data is best for each purpose will greatly increase the value the end result.One of the defining features of many BI platforms is the ability to generate real-time reports. This process used to be tedious and almost impossible for the casual user, but many platforms are now much more user-friendly, enabling just about anyone to query the database and create reports. Others prefer to have reports delivered from their BI analysis partners. Having a third party that delves into data and analytics provides yet another avenue for growth and opportunity.

Staging Area:

How much data will you need to be able to analyze at a given time? Are you able to stage the data inside a native BI platform i.e. Tableau Data Extracts OR do you need to host it in a separate platform i.e. Data Warehouse or Microsoft SQL Server? If you are combining from multiple data sources, we would highly recommend having some sort of data warehouse.A staging area is mainly required in a Data Warehousing Architecture for timing reasons.  In short, all required data must be available before data can be integrated into the Data Warehouse. Due to varying business cycles, data processing cycles, hardware, and network resource limitations and geographical factors, it is not feasible to extract all the data from all Operational databases at exactly the same time.

Support:

Do you have support? This may seem like an odd question but the reason why most analytics workflows fail is from lack of support. It doesn’t matter if you can get the data once and build beautiful reports if you can’t then repeat the processes. The setting of an organizational support structure for your BI platform is key.

 

 

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TrackResult’s Relationship with Best Value Travel Club has Expanded

Best Value Travel Club is successfully selling the Saveon travel club product in their market since this Spring. They have decided that they need to manage the customer experience and can do it better than Saveon can. They have hired two fulfillment companies to assist their clients to use the product and have a good experience. One fulfillment company will use the Best Value database in TrackResults, while the other will use the VRS database in TrackResults. They will use the features of TrackResults to log calls and communications of every contact with clients while still having access to the sales history. This 360-degree view of the client is important to understanding and servicing the client.

 

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Palace Hotels and Residence Club implements TrackResults

TrackResults is working with a well known and respected industry professional Tom Carney on a new club called Palace Hotels and Residence Club with its first sales center located at the Luna Palace Hotel in Mazatlan Mexico. Palace will be using TrackResults to manage the sales and marketing operations and to generate the analytical reporting needed to win in a competitive Mexican market like Mazatlan.

 

 

 

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What can business intelligence do for your business?

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Companies often have objections to getting on board with business intelligence software. Either they have something else they are using or they already run these reports and have the data. What good does the data do if you are not properly using it to make smarter business decisions? Think of it as a puzzle, you know all the pieces are there to complete it, but you need to put them all together to create the final picture. Using business intelligence properly can have several benefits:

  1. Smarter decisions backed by facts – Once a company implements business intelligence protocols, management can see detailed and current data on all aspects of the business allowing for informed decision-making and validation of instincts.
  1. Increase profit margins – A business intelligence system can point out areas of loss that were unnoticed and/or identify low-hanging opportunities for increased sales.
  1. Better Human Resource Allocations – Business intelligence can improve efficiency within your organization and increase productivity. Traditional data gathering methods can be prohibitively time-consuming especially for small businesses who may not have the resources to give full attention to data reviews. With the right BI program running these reports only takes a few seconds allowing managers to be more productive on their own tasks.

TrackResults’ team of analysts and consultants have over 50 years of combined experience in helping their clients ensure that every possible dollar flows through to their bottom line. Contact Ryan Williams (ryan@trackresults.net or 801-244-1310) for information on how to be sure that you are capturing all of the revenue that you should be.

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Leisuretime Travel joins the TrackResults family!

Bill Bailey a long time client and friend of TrackResults will be implementing TrackResults for a new sales operation in Litchfield IL. Leisuretime Travel is a startup operation by a team of experienced travel club salespeople. They are starting small and growing their marketing and will use TrackResults from ground zero to capture important information to run the day to day business as well as provide analytical reporting to be more sophisticated and competitive in their efforts.

 

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