Decision-making is such a big part of business, and a lot of time the “gut feeling” may actually work against their stated aims. By incorporating back-end analysis into their strategy, business owners can get insights that they typically wouldn’t even consider. It can make their businesses more money through improved sales, customer relationships, and efficiency. In today’s blog, we will go through what the incorporation of AI means for businesses regarding their business intelligence.
First Off: What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence is basically the measure of metrics that use empirical data that your business creates to improve organizational understanding and decision-making. BI insights won’t tell administrators what to do or what will happen in the future, but it will help them better understand how their business is working and how they can use this information to improve operations, marketing and sales processes, and product or service support.
How BI Works
The fundamental variable of any business intelligence platform is raw data. Raw data is collected at the source in which it is created to give a true perspective of what the data represents. Using this raw data, a business intelligence platform can crunch numbers to provide useful information for business decision-making.
While individual companies utilize business intelligence in various ways for different purposes, the overall process is relatively uniform across all industries and typically follows these steps:
- Data collection and storage - Data from various sources—including internal company and external market data—is collected, integrated, and stored. Given the prevalence of big data, this data is often stored in a data warehouse created by a data engineer.
- Data preparation - Data sets are created and prepared for analysis, often by developing data analysis models.
- Data analysis - Data analysts run queries against these data sets or models.
- Data visualization - The results of these queries are used to produce visualizations in the form of charts, graphs, histograms, or other visual representations, along with BI dashboards and reports.
- Decision-making - Decision-makers utilize data visualizations and reports to inform their decisions. They may also use their BI dashboards to delve further into the data for additional insights.
How Can a Small Business Build a BI Platform?
There are all types of tools available that offer some form of analytics—and for better or worse, all seem to be using some form of machine learning or claim to be fueled by AI. The reality is that the more any software can provide automation, the more beneficial it can potentially be for the business using it. From your website to your CRM to stand-alone products that can be used to get a better idea about your business, there are a lot of tools out there with backend analytics platforms that can provide you with the knowledge options you’re seeking to improve decision-making and create a more efficient business.
If your business wants to unlock its potential and start properly using analytics and intelligence tools, contact the IT service providers at Data Net. Our staff of experts can help you with every step of the process, including setting up a proper data warehouse, and suggest the tools to get you where you want to go. For a consultation, give us a call today at (760) 466-1200.
