Are you making effective use of all of the data you collect in your enterprise software? The amount of information that is available to you can be overwhelming. While the concept of Big Data isn’t new, companies are getting smarter with their data. Smart data strategies include adopting business intelligence software solutions and identifying key performance indicators to track on a regular basis. The next step is to create an actionable plan for improvement. Automating this process increases agility, enabling companies to react quickly to changing market and customer demands. As the amount of data that companies store increases, businesses need a solution that can access and analyze massive amounts of data in real-time so everyone can make better decisions.

Are you getting the insight you need from your enterprise software?

There are a few key questions you need to ask yourself to identify whether you’re getting what you need out of your system.

Can you easily analyze your data?
Can you easily change views and create dashboards?
Can you quickly and easily customize reports?
Can you easily drill down into more detailed information within a few clicks (or do you need to re-run reports and start from scratch)?
Can you automate the regular reports and dashboards you need?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’ then you need to rethink the system you’re using. You are not alone. An Aberdeen survey showed that:

88% of managers can’t measure marketing influence on sales and pipeline
77% of mangers aren’t notified when changes affect the business
It takes an average of 11.5 days for managers to be notified of events affecting the business

Business Intelligence offers significant benefits

Having business critical information at your fingertips is essential to ensure that your business keeps running smoothly. It also gives you the ability to act quickly and make better connections between different areas of your business. Let’s look at three key benefits of business intelligence:

1. Real-time visibility of operations

Good business intelligence should be at the heart of every company as it can provide increased control—visibility is essential. Do you know who the best performers are? Can you easily identify areas for improvement? Is stock going missing and you can’t identify where it’s going? Is there an error in your accounts and you need to drill down to invoicing or billing quickly to make your P&L balance—can you do all of this in a few clicks or do you need to re-run a report that takes forever?

2. Make better decisions more quickly

Analytical tools can give you the insight that you need to achieve real business agility. They can provide increased visibility of your financial prospects, help you better understand the implications of an investment, and can make and analyze connections between different areas of your business. Business Intelligence helps you to embrace strategic planning for business growth by identifying key trends and patterns in your data and helping you gain a better understanding of your business, transforming data into actionable information. You can be more responsive and can support future planning with the ability to identify opportunities to increase revenue or to reduce costs.

3. Improve collaboration and efficiency

The most important reason to have a good business intelligence solution is that it can improve efficiency within your business and, as a result, increase productivity. Simple, easy to use tools that can be used by anyone across the business can help you share information across different departments, enabling you to save time on reporting and analytics. This is particularly essential if you have regular reports you need to run (e.g. monthly executive reports where you need the same information each month). Sharing information reduces duplication of data and means all your figures match up. It allows you to get on with the more important things like the actual running of your business.

Sage Enterprise Intelligence helps you make the most of your enterprise data

If you would to use your enterprise data to become more agile and efficient, check out Sage Enterprise Intelligence, a business intelligence solution that integrated directly with Sage enterprise software. Learn more about enterprise intelligence by downloading our whitepaper, Better Visibility, Extraordinary Decision Support.

Contact IWI to learn more about making the most out of your enterprise software.