I’m a big fan of sayings and truisms, and one of my favorites is “knowledge is power.” But I have to admit, as I start to see business intelligence solutions becoming more and more sophisticated, I think it actually might be more fitting to say that Knowledge Is Profit.
In business, we’re constantly looking for better, more efficient ways to do things. It’s how we get a leg up on the competition, how we continue to grow and evolve even as everything around us continues to change.
Often, this approach involves the ways that we use—or don’t use—the technology that’s available to us. More often than not, and especially in today’s world, this technology comes to us as data and its varied forms of analyses.
This is the basic idea behind Business Intelligence. Much like military intelligence, Business Intelligence is actionable information that serves a tactical purpose—namely to help us achieve whatever our primary business objectives may be. Without this data, our strategies are vague and undefined, and our solutions can often hinge as much on dumb luck as on sound business acumen.
That’s not to say that “going with your gut” or “trusting your instincts” has become an obsolete form of decision-making. Rather, what it means is that business decisions based on data analysis are becoming more the savvy norm than the nerdy outlier, and failing to take this into account can cause you and your organization to quickly fall behind the competition.
But why is this data so useful? And how can it serve your organization’s specific interests?
There are many reasons why finding and adopting a Business Intelligence solution can be advantageous for your company, but here are just a few:
1) Pattern-recognition.
From buying behaviors to market trends, having a system in place that can not just collect your data, but analyze it for patterns will help you identify the weak points in your strategy and resolve them.
2) Improved Focus.
Analyzing these patterns of behavior can also help you narrow your points of emphasis down to the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are really driving your business. That means no more wasted efforts on things like promoting undesirable SKUs, and with a robust enough data set, your organization can start to test ideas about what works and what doesn’t.
3) Faster Services.
People say time is money. With the right Business Intelligence solution, your data can be collected and analyzed in real-time, allowing you to take action and address market shifts and other issues as they arise, rather than after the fact.
To better highlight the benefits of Business Intelligence solutions, and explain how they can work for you, let’s look at a real-world example that we’re implementing here at HMI.
The solution is called Snap2Claim. It’s our new automated invoice submission technology that’s designed to streamline the incentive claims process in your rewards program while providing valuable business intelligence to its operators.
On the front end, Snap2Claim enables participants to easily take a picture of their latest invoice, much like a mobile deposit for a check to the bank. The information is conveniently uploaded to our database, where the data is then scanned and validated. If the self-learning system notices any mismatched data, it will alert the participant accordingly and either be resubmitted or reevaluated.
On the back end, the system provides a streamlined, automated claims process that eliminates common issues like manual entry errors, limited data capture, and changing products and SKUs.
But perhaps one of the best parts of Snap2Claim is that the OnDemand integrated SaaS platform also offers enhanced Business Intelligence that can be used not only for further improvement of the program or promotion, but also to give valuable direction for overall business growth strategies.
In addition to identifying buying behaviors and market trends, Snap2Claim can also generate user databases for specific data points like the Average Sell Price and Average Quantity Sold for both specific SKUs and SKU groups.
With this kind of data in hand and analysis help from our team, you can refine your reward program parameters, create new short-term promotions, or even generate full-blown growth campaign initiatives centered around the SKUs you’re looking to sell.
This is just one example of Business Intelligence technology that can be used to enhance your strategies and your bottom line. But whatever your business needs, all signs point to Business Intelligence solutions paving the path to future success.
Looking for a smarter way to run your existing incentive program? Contact us at 888.220.4780 or marketing@hmiaward.com to find out more about what our Business Intelligence technology can do for you.
Sources:
http://www.datamensional.com/the-10-most-important-benefits-of-business-intelligence/
https://bi-survey.com/benefits-business-intelligence
