Has your business ever stalled when trying to make a decision? You know what the problem is, but you find yourself on the fence about a couple of solutions to tackle the issue. But the longer you wait, the more expensive the problem is becoming.
If this situation resonates with you, then you need one addition to your company’s growth plan: a business intelligence strategy.
Having access to the right data helps companies make accurate decisions as much as 5x faster than without that data. Business intelligence tools help you get the data that you need to arm yourself with the insight required to make a wise business decision.
If this appeals to you, but you don’t know where to start with a business intelligence strategy, you’re in the right place. Read on.
1. Know the Problems You Need to Solve
The first thing to keep in mind is that you’re going to use business intelligence (BI) to solve a sequence of problems. You should be very clear on what those problems are so that you can tailor your strategy around getting the data necessary to solve those problems.
2. Get Executive Buy-in
No business intelligence strategy will work if the executive leadership that is making the business decisions doesn’t trust the data that comes out of it. Build a business case for the BI tool that you plan to bring on board in order to get executive buy-in. Get your leaders excited about the ability to have the insight they need to make fast decisions.
3. Identify BI Solutions
Now comes the exciting part: figuring out what tool your company will end up using. When it comes to business intelligence, it may seem like there are a hundred and one different options on the market.
The most important thing to consider is that you need to figure out what specific features you need and use those criteria to guide your buying process. Be sure to check out solutions like Knowi.
4. Implement Business Intelligence
Don’t rust the process of implementing business intelligence. Be sure to get all of the integrations and connections hooked up correctly so that the tool can pull accurate data.
5. Accumulate Data
Once the tool is implemented, it’s time to accumulate data. Any BI tool will need some amount of time to collect a statistically relevant amount of data.
6. Implement Recommendations
Once you have enough data, it’s time to start formulating some recommendations on how your business should change its strategy. Use your executive leaders’ pull to make sure that those recommendations get implemented.
7. Test Recommendation Results
Last but not least, use the tool to test the results of the recommendations that you have implemented. The beauty of business intelligence is that the data will allow you to continue to iterate on the solutions to your various business problems so that you can constantly improve.
Business Intelligence Strategy, Made Simple
There you have it. With this guide to formulating a business intelligence strategy, you should now be ready to implement a BI tool in your organization so you can start making better, faster decisions.
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