Understanding Dollars and Cents with Business Intelligence
It can be hard to make sense of the dollars and cents, numbers and figures flowing from your company’s business intelligence solutions. When manufacturers were asked about areas where they invested in technology and the potential return on investment, one area stood out: business intelligence.
Among those surveyed, collecting business insights was the number one priority for investment. For the 76 percent of manufacturers who made the investment into new software to collect business insights, an astonishing 100 percent saw an improvement.
Anytime you see every manufacturer in a survey agreeing on something, it’s important to take note. When everyone agrees that investing in software to collect business insights does indeed improve business, it makes sense to explore it as an option.
Manufacturing businesses face similar challenges no matter what products they make. Reducing the costs of overhead and raw materials, forecasting demand, increasing sales, and improving customer service are concerns shared by companies making everything from automotive parts to cardboard boxes. But one thing stands out: no matter what the problem, the solution lies in gaining deeper insights into existing business processes, and making sound decisions based on facts.
You can accomplish this by including business intelligence solutions in your manufacturing operations. The right software can make it easier to boost revenues by helping you gain insights into important areas of your company’s processes.
Business Intelligence Solutions Break Through Silos
One reason why manufacturers may be seeing such good results is the way that business intelligence solutions have of breaking through silos. Whether it’s product silos or department silos, business units who communicate and share poorly with others create walls that impede business. Breaking down siloed business units through shared data is a simple yet highly effective method of improving your overall company.
Business intelligence solutions offer a unique advantage to help departments cooperate. Because data flows into one central system, it becomes available to everyone. No one area can maintain control or power simply by refusing to share data, or by being slow to share it. Real-time data synchronization enables everyone to see what Department A has been producing and Department B has been selling!
Data Sorting and Visualization Tools
Another important function of business intelligence solutions is to help employees sort through reams of data quickly and efficiently. A good business intelligence system allows you to sort data from multiple departments or data streams easily and efficiently. It helps to have an intuitive interface that users can navigate, like software they’re already familiar with. It also helps if the system can be customized to run the exact reports that users need, rather than what the programmers originally thought they might need.
Data visualization goes hand-in-hand with data manipulation and business intelligence solutions’ usefulness. Data visualization refers to running charts, graphs, and other pictorial displays based on the data available. Let’s face it; most people don’t know how to read through columns of data on a spreadsheet, and it’s more powerful to see pictures than long streams of numbers. By including data visualization tools in your software, you’ll be able to quickly scan graphs and draw conclusions about things important to your manufacturing business.
Manufacturers Weigh in on Business Intelligence Systems: Learn More
IWI Consulting offers expert insights and software solutions that help manufacturers reduce costs, improve productivity and increase profits. We offer as Sage Enterprise Intelligence, Sage X3, Sage 300 and more to help your business profit from its data. Please contact us today or call 1-866-916-3851 for more information.