4 Ways Business Intelligence Can Improve Operations

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) can provide companies with useful business intelligence software to help them gain greater insight into operations and increase revenue. When combined with the data powerhouse of ERP, business intelligence software allows companies to take full advantage of their data and use it to gain valuable information. Here are the top benefits of business intelligence:

Have all the information
ERP and business intelligence truly create an all-in-one storage platform for an entire organization’s data needs. This means customer order information can be connected with inventory management and other operational data to provide a complete picture of a company’s output. Business intelligence tools allow companies to make connections between data trends that would not have been immediately apparent in the absence of this technology. This means managers no longer have to guess about sales volumes or other important details.

Analyze customer behavior
Business intelligence allows companies to use every bit of data they have to their advantage, and this also extends to customer behavior. According to Enterprise Apps today, business intelligence makes it easier to translate customer data into business growth. Combine purchase behavior with data from customer relationship management and even social channels to learn new things about customers and use these insights to increase revenue.

Be more nimble
Access to business intelligence allows companies to move more quickly. While a manager may be able to make a strategic decision based on separate sets of data, this first requires him or her to seek out all of the different data sets, sit down and review them. Business intelligence removes these stages and automatically generates user-friendly reports that can be shared via the cloud. The efficiency of business intelligence and ERP frees up employees to spend their time on other things, such as how to strategically deploy the newfound knowledge they possess.

See the future
One of the most powerful attributes of business intelligence is its forecasting features. In the past, much of business operations relied on guesswork and assumptions. Business intelligence helps companies more accurately predict the future by using algorithms on historical data, according to Smart Data Collective. Greater accuracy means stronger growth and fewer mistakes.

Companies with ERP should adapt business intelligence to increase efficiency and do more with the data they already have. Companies track customer behavior, sales and inventory information. They can use this data more effectively by harnessing business intelligence to piece it all together.